


Den Den Tea - R side

by RZWrites



Category: One Piece
Genre: C and I have no clue if we're honest, Crack, R, Self-Insert, just don't think about it too hard, stan mama Ivankov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24903403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZWrites/pseuds/RZWrites
Summary: When R opened his laptop that day to just have some god damn peace and quiet, he didn't expect it to end with his deaging and amnesia.Oh and he's now in the revolutionary army and EVERY TIME he makes a joke, this god damn universe turns it into reality.Did I mention that his shyness turns him into a state where he can't physically even speak with people until he is comfortable around them?Yeah, that's a thing.
Comments: 29
Kudos: 92





	1. Prologue

It was supposed to be a stress free day for a certain red haired lad in his early twenties, it was supposed to be nice and relaxing. Even though ‘t was rather hot and humid outside, and his head was aching in a pain that only an upcoming thunder storm would make it ache, R[DISTORTED] was defying the gods by not unplugging his computer in favour of watching Pokémon like the mature twenty-three year old he was. And just like he’d anticipated, the thunder did arrive and lightning did indeed strike. Though everything else was a total surprise.

As the computer shut itself down, earning a confused and alerted yelp from R, who panicked in his usual way of doing things and attempted to check if the thing still even worked.  
Well… The computer screen certainly flashed, but R was pretty sure that it wasn’t supposed to flash in multiple colours as if it was in a rave party and the DJ was using the laptop as a source of light. Which is a darn stupid idea anyway.  
When the computer’s light suddenly decided to turn itself to max, R had to shield his eyes from it, he already had trouble with regular sunlight being too much to his eyes, you can bet that computer light on max setting was pure torture for him.

He closed his eyes.

“Vhat is this boy doing here?” a tenor voice carried into his ears, prompting him to open his eyes and take a look.

This…. wasn’t his cozy little living room in his apartment complex. The room was large, the walls were of stone and the floor was dark wood. There was a large table and around the table was a group of people. R could feel his cheek heat up and his throat to suddenly form a familiar lump in it. His shyness kicking in at a full force. Shaking from anxiety, unable to do anything else but to stare at the group wide-eyed, R cursed his own nature and fear of crowds once more.

Ivankov blinked when a small boy appeared seemingly out of nowhere into the room, the nonbinary entity glanced quickly around to see if anyone else noticed his presence before calling it out. In front of his eyes, the boy opened the largest amber coloured orbs with the sharpest pupils he’d ever seen and looked around, confusion and panic written all over his small face. The other revolutionaries turned their attention towards the child, who froze on his seating, clothes way too big for his tiny body making him appear smaller than he already was. The person closest to the child turned towards him, his hand extended forward to capture the child, whose entire body was shivering from fear.  
Before the hand could reach the young child, the boy had bolted past the man and slid under the table for safety. Ivan looked at the leader of their group, none other than the Revolutionary Dragon, curious of what he’d do. The raven stared at the table, silently, clearly thinking what would be the best move to execute.

“There’s no need to be afraid, child, we won’t hurt you”, he finally said, which was followed by silence. The silence lasted for what felt like hours, making Ivankov want to say something, tell their beloved leader that the child wouldn’t listen. But then a mop of red hair, emerged from the side nobody was at to take a peek at them. From the child’s eyes, you could easily see that he didn’t yet trust them, but he was also very curious of them and clearly wanted to grant them the benefit of doubt. Just what on earth would make a child this young act like this?

The kid couldn’t be older than ten and yet, here he was. Staring.

And something about that stare was different, more aware, more perceiving and older than it should’ve been. On the closer look, the child looked exhausted, there were dark circles under his eyes and he was blinking rapidly, as if the light itself was hurting his eyes too much for him to see properly. When the eye pair turned towards Dragon, he was sure that he was being judged, his entire being weighed.

The longer he stared at the boy, the more he was sure of his decision.

“Ivankov, you’ll be in charge of him”, “Vhat?!”


	2. The Boy with a long name

Ivankov stared at the child, one of their painted eyebrows twitching in annoyance. It wasn't that the child was being a nuisance, or doing anything even remotely childlike that could be taken as him being uncooperative and rowdy. If anything, he was very well mannered child, mature, polite. Or that's the way he seemed to be like. The boy hadn't uttered a single word the entire time he'd been at the hidden headquarters of the revolutionary army. And it'd been already two months. It just wasn't natural. Sure, he did make his needs to be known, but they knew close to nothing about the kid with the way he was acting. And it was really starting to bother the okama King.  
It was more than clear that something had happened to him to make him act in such way, something traumatic, something that'd made him choose not to trust other people at all. He didn't even talk to the other kids. If anything, he was seemingly avoiding it at all costs.

Ivankov watched how the newest nuisance known as Sabo got thrown against the wall, their little ward observing this phenomenon from their side. The blonde was badly hurt, his eyes cascading as he was slowly getting up. He was estimatedly the same age as the red head, so they'd expected them to get along. But the redhead had actively avoided him for some reason, with a haunted look on his face, like he'd forgotten something and was ashamed by it.  
Sabo let out an annoyed, angry scream, hitting the earth with his tiny fists, about how he needed to get stronger. But for what reason, he never said. The boy seemed to have an amnesia, he had no recollection of why or how he'd gotten into the ocean from which Dragon saved him from nor the reason why his face was burnt. But he was determined as hell.

R stared at his outburst, his face an emotionless mask like it'd been for the most of the time he'd been there.  
A small foot took a step forward.  
Ivankov stared in wonder, knowing that something phenomenal was about to happen, Dragon, Bartolomew and few others stopping to watch the scene unfold.  
When the redhead had arrived, he'd been dressed in clothes way too large for his small body, and his steps had been timid and unsure. But now... dressed in neat clothes that made him look like a runaway royal, the boy walked forward his head high up.

Sabo blinked as he recognised the silent boy from before, who'd been observing him from the shadows.  
Honestly he wasn't sure what to think of him.

"You wanna fight?!" he tried challenging the other one as he stepped in front of him.  
.......only to firmly walk past him towards a tree that grew nearby.

Ivankov held her breath.

The boy turned around, light reflecting from the amber coloured orbs making them look bright yellow.  
He opened his mouth.

A faint song carried itself over the training area.  
It was sung in a language none of them could understand.  
The melody was calming like a lullaby.  
And soon the lot found themselves to slowly relax because of it.  
It was a dangerous voice.  
It felt like listening to the wind, the ocean and the forest at the same time.  
It made you want to ignore everything else in the world and just concentrate on the voice.  
And yet the voice wasn't demanding anything from you, it just wanted to help, to heal.

Before long, the child stopped singing, holding his throat with a confused expression creeping upon his young face. It was as if he'd expected something else to come out instead of the voice that clearly belonged to a young boy. The boy extended his hands to look at them, a thoughtful expression briefly running across it, until he seemed to come into a realisation. But whatever it was that he now knew, nobody dared to ask. Moreover, they were still in a slight state of shock from hearing the boy's voice at all. The boy turned away, but Ivankov was sure that he heard him silently say the words "believe" and "shrunk" in a slightly embarrassed tone. The small human took a moment to take deep breath before he'd turn towards Sabo once more. The usual glass like and aloof look in his eyes was now replaced by soft and shy warmth. The boy moved closer to Sabo, offering his hand to him so he could use it to pull himself up.

"......", he seemed to want to say something, but he quite couldn't, a light tint of pink making its way onto the redhead's face as he realised that he still couldn't speak. Sabo blinked as he noticed this, even more so when a sad and miserable look tried to worm its way into the eyes of the other boy.  
"Thank you", he mumbled to the other one, who stopped on his tracks to look into his eyes.

He smiled at Sabo.

"Come on Nao! I swear that I'll beat you this time!" Sabo laughed as he twirled his pipe around in a fast phase. The now seventeen year old young revolutionary was standing tall, still wearing his trademark chimney hat and blue shirt. His opponent lazily descended through the window onto the training area, a rapier resting on his hip. The redhead stretched briefly before adjusting his sunglasses. His clothes were mainly red and dark grey, he too supporting a long white cloth around his neck similar to Sabo. He smiled cheekily to the blonde.  
"You sure about that? You have lost to me around thirty times already", he answered his baritone carrying itself into the ears of the former royal, who scoffed in return. It had turned out that Renato Eliah Natael was a year older than Sabo, physically at least, and when he'd managed to reacquire his ability to speak, he'd filled the revolutionary in. Safe for how he'd gotten there and where he'd come from. Whenever he'd tried, his speech had turned into some foreign language they couldn't understand and his writings into nonsense. It was frustrating to both parties, especially to the redhead, who clearly wanted to return, but had no means to do so.   
And so, he'd stayed.

And it'd turned out that he was a skillful fighter, natural at sword based fighting, decent with a gun, and somehow, his hand to hand combat skills, even though under developed, were rather precise. Who would've guessed that a kid of 12 years old was capable of creating himself the perfect setting for a murder if he wanted to. His methods had been rather unusual, not based on actual fighting styles it seemed. For example, when he was asked to attack, all he did was calmly walk forward until his body had briefly brushed against his opponent's, and then he'd done a quick fake attack, causing his sparring partner to get out of balance, during which he'd actually use his own body weight to make the other one fully fall down, slither behind them and-  
....stop the movement there before the finishing blow.

Dragon stared at the two young men out of his window.

As he kept staring, Ren, like the older folk referred to the redhead, actually dropped his gun. On purpose.  
Sabo was distracted by this, which made it a lot more easier for Ren to execute his last movement set; clap his hands loudly in front of Sabo's face, pull out his rapier and bring it to the blonde's throat. It seemed like something that'd work a lot better with a shorter blade, but the man had insisted on getting a sword because "it felt right". But even with the man speaking, there had turned out to be a lot of rather odd things that made themselves known.

He seemed to be able to read people as if they were open books, and as a result they'd managed to keep a lot of marine spies from entering. There also was the fact that he just knew when someone was in danger and hurting, which made itself known with anxious phasing and near physical pain depending on the case. Ren had already started to gain himself some recognition both in the ranks of of the revolutionary and by the marines, his bounty steadily climbing up. 

Ren extended his hand to Sabo, who took it without second thought, smiling boyishly as he did. "You really are something else, just how'd you come so strong Nao?", "Just a lot of practice and healthy eating habits"  
As the blonde stared at his friend, he saw how he briefly took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes a little before putting them back on. It was a well known fact that Ren had highly light sensitive eyes to the point where he had to wear glasses just to be able to see the world around him. Though recently he'd picked up haki training so he'd be able to use that to see incase his glasses ever broke. It didn't stop the man from wondering what it was like to live like that. To be unable to see the world without an aid, to be insomniatic and a light sleeper. Most likely unbearable. As he kept staring, the man ruffled his red hair out of habit. Something about it seemed to calm him down but god forbid if anyone else touched it. He turned towards Sabo.

"Is Mama-Ivan at the base?", "Uh, yeah? He's near Dragon's study"

Sabo matched his walk with Ren's in order to keep up with him, idly wondering why he wanted to see Ivankov now of all times. He'd still remember how the man had started to refer to Ivankov with that nickname.

_Ren sat down across the table, looking at its wooden surface, silent as always. Sabo stared at the boy, wondering why he was so silent all the time, especially since he'd sung only the other day. He had a nice voice. Accompanied by Koala and few others, the blonde kept observing at this strange boy, his secret mission being one that'd unfold the truth regarding him and his silence. Ivankov walked inside, his head swaying from side to side comically, while holding a plateful of food. "There v'you are boy", he said as he placed the plate down. "Thanks mom", the redhead said, gaining a short "You're welcome" from the okama King who soon exited the room. Sabo was shocked to hear the change of words, it was so casual. Was this a normal thing?_

_A moment of silence passed with the redhead eating until he suddenly froze, his face turning red. The child covered his face with his hands in embarrassment. The sound of speeding footsteps getting closer was heard coming from the distance. Ivankov crashed through the door._

_"VHAT DID V'YOU JUST CALL ME?!?"_

"Mama Ivan", Ren said as he knocked the doorway twice, alerting the others that he was there. The purple afroed person walked to him, wearing her signature clothing. "Vhat's the matter Ren?" she asked as she stopped on her tracks in the full glory of her woman form. Ren looked down, he appeared to still have a certain level of shyness to him. "It seems that I am starting to lose my memory... Do you think that there's anyone who could help me?"  
Ivankov inhaled sharply. Memory loss didn't sound good at all, especially with someone like Ren. She took a glance at Dragon, who nodded in agreement, before turning at Ren once more. "Vell, certainly, ve cannot leawe this as it is. Ve vill be leawing tomorrov morning to search for a doctor vho might hawe a clue of vhat is happening to v'you".


	3. Mama's Connections

"So... Who are we exactly looking for?" Ren asked as he sat down opposite of Ivankov, who was in middle of changing Inazuma's sex once more. "Vell, a fev years ago, I met this boy vho vas training to become a doctor, his name is Trafalgar Lav, and I beliewe that he might be able to help v'you", he said without turning towards his ward. It became uncomfortably silent for a moment. Ivankov closed his eyes. 

"He's a good person, though troubled and filled with lust for vengeance which drives him until justice is either served or he dies. Yet he'd rather have himself be the one who dies instead of his close ones"

Ah, there it was. Ren's ability to tell how certain people are just based on hearing their name or seeing them once. Nobody knew how it worked, not even the man in question. And it bothered Ivankov greatly. He'd talked about it with the rest of the revolutionary army, especially Dragon, but he'd come up with nothing. Common thought was that he could hear the voice of all things, but there was no proof for that. Another theory was that he was using his haki to see into the future, but to be on that level would take a lot more practice than the man had gone through. Of course, he might've been a seer, but that was also a rather silly thought.

It was like the way he knew a lot more than what he should've known at a such young age. Which prompted the question, just who on earth was he?

Was he a runaway noble like Sabo, who shunned his past and thus wanted to be better than that scum? A son of a pirate? A son of a scholar? The possibilities were endless. And then there was his inability to actually tell them anything about himself or his past. There were so many things that'd become clear if only the man's parent trauma wouldn't interfere with him attempting to tell them of his past.

It was odd really, despite of accepting things as they were and not being phased by anything, Ren was so untrusting that it was a wonder that he'd even told them his name in the first place! That is... If he did tell them his name. It was all just so confusing. His ability to not be surprised by anything, as if he'd anticipated it to happen, known it to happen, and done nothing to change the course of it. His ability to work with the majority of the members and be kind towards them, understanding and fair and yet he'd say nothing himself. Allowing them to decide how they saw him. No past attached to show who he'd been in the past, only the present.

It was a gift in a sense, without the past, they couldn't judge him based on who he had been prior to the moment he arrived into their lives, not based on his heritage, but on the other hand it did make it a lot harder to make sense of things. 

"Ivankov?"

Ivankov was snapped from his daze by the voice of his ward. He shook his head to make himself come back into the reality. The purplenette smiled at Ren, apologetically. "Sorry, I vas just thinking about my mission", he said, "Don't vorry about it". From the way Ren looked at him, he knew that Ren knew that he was lying, but that the redhead had chosen not to push it. Just what on earth was he going to do with him?

Two years passed before they'd even noticed it, without finding Law from anywhere. Two long years of searching from the paradise section of the Grandline where Law had been seen last during his time of studies. And nothing. And during this time Ren's memories of his past had almost completely disappeared. On the outside, he appeared not to mind, keeping his neutral expression on at all times, but Ivankov knew his ward better than anyone. Ren was a man, who found knowledge to be one of the most important things to have, someone who even prided himself in his ability to memorise things with relative ease and apply what he'd learned to the missions he'd taken. Which made him a valuable asset to the revolutionary army along with his ability to simply adapt into situations and read it without any problems.

And more than once, had Ivankov caught Ren looking distressed as he'd tried to remember, tried to hang on onto his memories as they were robbed from him. He'd bang his head steadily into a wall, his eyes clouded with grief and fear, mouth pursed into a thin line. Ivankov was pretty sure that the man knew that inflicting pain on himself didn't help the situation, but he didn't know if he should let it slip that he'd seen him do it. 

Ironically enough, this situation had allowed him to talk about his past without it being warped by his trauma, give out information, even if he seemed to be confused by what he'd told to him. As if it conflicted with what he really knew. 

Ren was from North Blue, an island where it was normal for the citizens to have a true name and a fake name. His true name was Aaron Eliah Natael, Renato was a fake name. From this, Ivankov felt like she needed to look into the Aaron family as she had no idea why the boy had been told to use a fake name. And the redhead had no idea why, but on the island everyone only called him R.

Ivankov had no heart to tell him that it was probably a pun of his surname.

"Y'know, before mom took me to East Blue, I used to spend a lot of time with someone. I think that she was called C", R stated slowly as he stared at the waves in the dawn. Ivankov looked at him. It reminded him of the way how Dragon was always facing towards the East, in his thoughts, sometimes talking about how he found one of the kids. They both had that look in their eyes, as if they were looking at something no one else was allowed to perceive. Both knowing more than they let on. "I wonder how she's doing, she was but a wee lass when I last saw her". Ivankov raised her eyebrow at this, it was rare to see the man show this kind of sentimentality towards anyone.

"Then vhy not go wisit her?" she asked, immediately gaining a troubled look from the redhead. A pair of sharp pupilled eyes stared at her, appearing to be yellow in the sunlight. "I can't, I don't know where she is. And besides", the man turned back towards the sea, "I think that my island had sunk to the bottom of the ocean". Ivan wasn't sure how to answer to this, she'd never been good at consolling grieving people. So she did what she usually did. Attempt to light the mood.

"Ah! Vell, I am sure that v'you'll be able to meet with v'your girlfriend in the future", she said earning an immediate answer of 'she's not my girlfriend, she's someone I used to look after as a child', "I stand corrected, v'your sister is most likely okay". Ivankov turned around, planning to do her signature joke, but just as she was about to pull it off, her vision was blocked by something.

"AAAHHH! I AM FALLING! FALLING OWER! VOE IS ME!" she shrieked as she felt her high heel slip on the deck. She fell on her back, hurting her bottom while at it. "I HAWE FALLEN AND I REFUSE TO GET UP VITHOUT HELP", she continued, hearing concerned voices around her. And a one chuckle, she instantly recognised to belong to R. The thing that had been blocking her sight was removed, revealing her ward's concerned yet amused pale face. Yet another mystery to the revolutionary army.

As she finally got up, after deciding to lay on the deck dramatically for five minutes just for good measure, Ivankov heard her ward read the thing out loud. It was a bounty poster and it belonged to Trafalgar Law.

"This certainly explains why you had so much trouble finding him", R stated as his eyes were glued on the poster. Ivankov looked at it over the red head's shoulder. It was a pretty decent shot of a young man in his twenties, mockingly smiling at the camera while on the background you could see a bear stare at the ruins of something. Ivankov took a note of R's facial expression and smirked devilishly. "I see that v'you appreciate his beauty boy", she said as she pricked herself with her acrylic nails, injecting herself with a different mix of hormones to assume her more masculine appearance. The reaction was immediate.

R's entire body stiffened as blood rushed through his veins to turn his face and ears red as a tomato. He started to stutter. 

"N-nO! It's just a- just that--in case I spot him and you don't so can tell- can inform- I am NOT", Ivankov bursted out laughing, it was just too good! And he finally saw something different on his face than just neutral facial expression or neutral face of disgust. "SHUT UP! DON'T LAUGH AT ME!"

Ivankov patted his shoulder affectionately, and to calm him down. "I'm just messing vith v'you, I know that v'you're really just hawing another one of those moments vhere v'you feel like v'you'we seen someone before", his eyes caught a pipe slowly rising from beneath the water. He smirked. "Vell vell vell... I certainly didn't expect this", he said as a yellow submarine rouse from the depths of the ocean. A door on its newly risen deck swung open.

"It's nice to see v'you, Tra-boy"


	4. The Captain and the King

Trafalgar Law, age 23, turning 24 in a couple of months, hadn't known what fate had in store for him when he'd swung his pair of suspiciously smooth and hairless legs over his bed in favour of getting up. If he had, he would've probably either decided to have a me day and sleep more or asked his men to buy extra coffee. He and his small crew of four people had gotten into a little bit of a trouble, dealt with it and posed for the camera that was trying to take their photos thinking that none of them would notice.

He's also fixed up those who had taken some damage, which was only one person, while he was at it and now they were casually moving forward on the Grandline without any detection thanks to their ship being a submarine. He'd also heard a rumour of someone looking for him, but usually when someone tried to find you, it wasn't a good thing. Ruffling his dark messy hair, Law moved out of his cabin, holding onto his signature hat tightly with his hand. He'd snatch something small to eat from the kitchen once he'd had a small chat with Bepo, his trusty companion and navigator, about their next move. He did need to find more people into his crew, especially a cook.

He'd only recently started his journey as a pirate extraordineer doctor, and as such he barely had enough people to take care of the ship. So far it was only him, Bepo, Shachi, Penguin and Ikkaku. Don't get him wrong, these people were very capable people, but on the other hand, it was better to have people so they could work in shifts which would allow them all to rest which was crucial for their health. 

Law stepped inside the navigation room, light reflecting ever so slightly from his darker skin and painting the walls with shadows. In middle of the room was a table, in working on the table was a polar bear mink. Law cleared his throat. The bear turned around immediately, his eyes brightening. "Good morning captain!" he chirped, emitting aura of cuteness and adoration. Law smiled at him. "Morning Bepo-ya, how are things?"

"Well, there's only one ship nearby and it appears to belong to the okama King Emporio Ivankov, so it should be safe to surface here and let some fresh air inside", "Do so" 

Law was more than able to remember the time he ran into Ivankov during his stay on Swallow Island, it had been both startling and intriguing experience, especially with the okama's demonstration of their devilfruit powers. He was certain that the ability would be beneficial to the modern medicine, there were certain health problems that could be dealt with a simple hormone injection. Of course there was another chance within this situation.

That was their skilled mechanic, Ikkaku, who'd been expressing conflict over his gender. Perhaps... It was a slim chance but... Maybe Ivankov would be able to help with it. They did say that he was capable of reading the hearts of men. Maybe he'd be able to tell if things were like Ikkaku felt like they were. Law himself had studied the phenomenon, bult he had no means of knowing for sure how to deal with it nor how to locate it. Law knew how to work with most sicknesses and wounds but this... 

This wasn't a sickness.

It was.. 

Something else. 

But there were no studies about it. Not really.

All the texts he'd redd talked about it as an mental sickness, a strong delusion, but the more he spoke with Ikkaku about it, the less it felt like it was. Ikkaku was a normal person, he had usual interests, normal ambitions, regular dreams. Law hated to admit it, but he was shamelessly using Ikkaku as a case study so he could learn more, be more accurate. This was a problem that some people had, and they were being treated wrong. And he couldn't stand such unjust treatment. He hated those who discriminated against their patients. He out of everyone knew how it felt like.

No patient should go through that.

So he'd started to question some of the information that the books had about the matters. And he'd found a lot of information that just wasn't true. He'd been furious when he'd realised this and started to write down his own notes about the sicknesses.

Skiddling into the kitchen, the doctor-captain checked briefly what was there before he himself settled on an apple. Noticing the bread loaf on the counter, the man scoffs before he turns on his heels and walks out towards the door to the deck. The meter which was there to let them know how far bow the surface they were was showing the zero mark. Law placed his hand on the handle and turned it.

Once more, he was awed to see how the Polar Tang, their belowed submarine which now felt more like a home than anything else, was such an amazing piece of machinery. It was smoothly designed which allowed it to sail with in anything from your regular water to solid rock, the doors didn't creack, the delicate technology on the inside was actually rather easy to learn and they had plenty of room in the operation room in case of an emergency. Captain Trafalgar stepped outside.

The sunlight was blindingly bright and he had to cover his eyes for a few minutes. Slowly, but surely, he managed to make out the figure of none other than Emporio Ivankov and someone else who was right beside the okama king. Some blinking turned the blurry outlines into two people, Ivankov was something he'd already expected, but the person in his left made him nearly choke on air.

Revolutionary Ren, one of the more dangerous members of the revolutionary army. His bounty had been recently raised up to five million beri thanks to his doings at a certain island which included destroying a ship delivering slaves and throwing someone out of a six story building while yelling something that vaguely sounded like "Eeet" or so the rumour said. His ability to predict things to a highly disturbing degree was also a widely known fact along with the rumour of him not being fully human and thus wearing a pair of sunglasses.

"Hello Lav-boy!", the high voice of the okama King greeted him from the other ship, "Do v'you mind if ve climb on board?" 

Law stared at the duo, trying to process the information he'd been given. His dark eyes darted between the redhead and the purplenette. The captain of the Heart Pirates pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me get this straight, your... ward, is loosing his memories and you want me to research about it so he can potentially get them back?" he asked, trying to figure out whether or not this was an actual request or just a joke. He turned his tired eyes to Ivankov, locking them onto him, without blinking. "You've got to be kidding me with this", "Oh it's quite the contrary in fact, Ren-boy is wery much dewastated to lose these memories and he fears that they might end up becoming a hindrance"

Ivankov twitched uncomfortably under his gaze while the redhead, Ren, was staying calm and cool as ice, saying not a single word, but always observing.

"What do I get out of this deal Emporio-ya", Law asked idly wondering if his gaze could potentially light the afro of the man on fire. Ivankov twitched. "Vell... V'you could get v'one of our best vork for you for the time being and uhhhh maybe a fawour from me...?", bingo. It was way too easy. Law leaned back smirking at the man, who was sure that he was having a meeting with the devil himself. And Ivankov worked for Dragon of all people. "I'll have you do that favour of yours immediately if you will".

Law stared intensively at the exchange between Ikkaku and Ivankov, writing down furiously what was said into his notebook. Without him noticing, Ren sat next to him to observe as well. And wouove Law turned to look at him, he would've noticed how his facial expression shifted from neutral to desperate for reasons unknown. 

The man sat up straight upon the conversation coming to an end, and right in front of his eyes, Emporio Ivankov stabbed Ikkaku on his sides with his nails, effectively changing her hormones and build. Ikkaku gasped out of surprise and pain, after all for your body to go through such changes in a short period of time hurt a lot, it did include her insides shifting and making way for new parts that hadn't been there before after all. Once it was done and over with, Law walked over to his crew mate.

"Room", he said his hand moved up and positioned similar to a puppeteer. The usual blue circle surrounded the area immediately. He drew his sword, moving it in front of himself slowly. "Scan".

From what he could see, everything was normal, just like it should be. There were no hot spots that'd require any tending to either and so he allowed the room to dissolve. The doctor turned to Ivankov, his face as serious as his kiddy gremlin mind would allow him to be. "You've kept your part of the bargain, so your guy will be coming with me. Anything that I'll need to know about him?"

"Funny that v'you'd mention that", Ivankov answer as she casually took out a thick opus that'd been hidden into her hair. Law had no idea how it worked and frankly he was too scared to ask. As he stared at the large person, she casually flipped few pages into the book. "This is a little something that I managed to vrite vhile I vas in charge of Ren-boy, so it should be useful for v'you...." 

Law stared at the thing with a scandalised look, his mind blank. "What the actual fuck." was all that he could utter when the okama casually dropped the book onto his arms and he fully felt the weight of the thing. Was this guy really such a heavy maintenance? No wonder they were trying to get rid of him. 


	5. The Opus

At midnight, the captain of Polar Tang decided to read through the "manual" as Ivankov had called it. The rest of his crew was attempting to read the fine handwriting. From the looks of it, Ivankov had been writing it since the redhead had joined them at the age of twelve. The cursive mentioned how the boy had been acting as if he'd been possessed by an old man, keeping his distance from the rest, always reading the atmosphere and making mental notes of the others. And how it took him months to say a word, before he'd allowed anyone else near him and befriended two kids in particular, Sabo and Koala.

There were detailed notes of the man and his more peculiar habits, especially his love towards arts and his seemingly prophetic ability to see into the future. How it was triggered by certain keywords and names along with a list of what he'd said. But what made it more interesting was the fact that the man merely called it an instinct and discarded what he'd been able to tell as just logic.

"I don't understand... Why would they allow him to leave the revolutionary army if he was such an important asset to them?" Shachi mumbled as he kept reading the thing over Law's shoulder. The raven flipped another page.

_"R is clearly not comfortable vith the weight he is carrying on his shoulders, the boy only vants to be left alone in shadovs vhere nobody vill judge him nor rise him on a pedestal, treat him like a higher being or a seer and vith the responsibility he's being thrusted vith, there is no rest for him. Ve as the rewolutionary army hawe pushed him for far too long, forced him to the position of leadership vhich he newer vished for. And it's making him miserable. He von't admit it, but it's seen clearly in him. He sees it as his duty, as something he cannot refuse. And thus he carries the burden vithout complaint."_

The next pages kept on similar tone, explaining as well how the redhead worked and how he acted in general. A lot of the notes claimed that the man was very cryptic from time to time, going as far as off-handedly mentioning how he was surprised to find someone specific to have both of their legs still attached and things like that. One of these more peculiar moments also mentioned that the man had stated that Ivankov would meet a monkey in the future, who'd change how he saw his leader and how he'd become the one to teach a certain chef the ultimate way of cooking as a way of soothing his tormented mind.

"So... He only speaks to those who have gained his trust and respect? That sounds like an easy feat", Penguin stated as his eyes scanned the page. Law chuckled at this statement, it did sound like a nice change. Usually it took a lot of time and effort to find good people to be in the crew. Feeling the eyes of someone drilling into his head, the captain looked up. His newest cremate, they'd decided to call him Eli because it made them feel like they were on the same standing with the man, and he seemed to appreciate it more, was staring at him. It was nearly impossible to tell what he was thinking, with the sunglasses hiding his eyes.

"According to this opus, you are quite capable chef, is this true, Eli-ya?" he asked, not moving his eyes from the man. The redhead tilted his head in thought before nodding his head into something that resembled a bow and agreement. Law watched how the male moved in front of his desk. He brought his hand forward, his palm hovering over the wooden top of the table.

 _Toc Toc._ Pause. _Toc._ Pause. _Toc._ Pause. _Toc Toc Toc._

Law quickly went to the page which mentioned this tapping of a finger, one of the ways in which the redhead apparently had communicated with in the past. His eyes scanned the page for a while, remembering the context in which it was applied. "You... Want to know where the kitchen is?" he asked unsurely. _Nod_. "Bepo, mind showing it to him? Ikkaku, do you think that you can find something like a small blackboard he can use for communication? It'll be a lot easier that way", the duo that had been addressed moved immediately to fulfil the orders.

As the trio disappeared, Law flipped onto the next page, which made him furrow his brow in confusion. It was a page about Eli's health records. And on the place of his bloodtype redd neatly " _Unknown bloodtype, lacks the rhesus entirely and appears to mix perfectly vith other blood types. The doctor refers to it as the Golden Blood thanks to its nature, but the nickname makes Ren rather anxious and uncomfortable. According to him, his home called it O-, and it is incapable of receiwing blood from any other blood type because of lacking the rhesus. Other bloodtypes on his island vere called A, B, AB, O and each of them had tvo wersions of them, v'one vith negatiwe rhesus and v'one vith positiwe rhesus. O could giwe blood to ewery single positiwe bloodtype, O- on the other hand vas called the sawiour of infants thanks to it being the only bloodtype vithout the rhesus and thus could be easily distributed to anyone vithout side-effects_ ".

Law leaned back on his chair, thinking. The implications of this... O negative blood had we're exhilarating. With only one bloodtype, not a single man, woman or child would be lost. Just the possibility of such thing filled him with excitement.

He quickly redd through the book, the last page with text making him halt.

" _His memories are slovly disappearing, and in his fear of losing them all, Ren has bestoved me vith the knovledge of his home island. It is residing on the North Blue, or at least it used to be. His people hawe the most interesting vay of names. They hawe a true name and a fake name, but the name they change is not their first. Vhile he may have introduced himself as Renato Eliah Natael, his true name is Aaron Eliah Natael. During his time on the island, he vas simply referred to as R, and it seems like the citizens of the island vere being hunted by the Vorld Gowernment for a reason or a another thus the name policy. He also mentioned a little girl he used to look after, fondly calling her Shi. I hope that Lav-boy vill be able to help him so his past von't disappear_ ".

Law blinked as he rered the block of text, it appeared to have been added only recently. Maybe only moments before he'd met up with Ivankov. The book did explain a lot of things and if anything, it existed to provide context to things. Like how he'd came to join the revolutionary army and why he was now seeking to leave it behind now. Also... His muteness being caused by high level of anxiety and shyness made rather interesting case study after Ikkaku's identity.

The mechanic did appear to be a lot happier and more at ease now that she was physically a woman like she'd been on the inside. However, she had no desire of changing her name as she liked the one she'd been given at birth. And Law respected that. Now all he needed to keep in mind was the pronouns, which shouldn't be a problem after a while. Especially since Ikkaku was a recent addition, it was easier to get used to a person who you'd only recently met changing their pronouns than someone you'd known for years, the force of habit was a lot stronger with those you know longer.

As he was closing the book, his eyes caught up a smaller note on the margin that had managed to go unnoticed previously. On the health page.

" _Devilfruit user, Zoan type, neko-neko no mi, model Black Jaguar_ "

How interesting.... 

It had been a couple of weeks since Emporio Ivankov had left that person with the Heart Pirates, and they still didn’t know what to think of him. The young man was always silent, but from his eyes one could see that he was always thinking and observing the others. It was as if he was trying to look into them, see right into their very soul, with those piercing amber pupils of his. He’d stare without blinking at someone for several minutes before closing his eyes and moving forward. And he looked so tired all the time, as if he’d fall iver any moment.

Ivankov had introduced him as Ren to them, but they’d also said that they had a longer name which was broken into three different nicknames by people. Those who were older than him referring to him as Ren, people who were notably younger called him Nao and those of his own age called him Eli.

In the end, the Heart Pirates had chosen to call him Eli. It felt like they were on the same footing as him then, and the boy was less nervous when referred to as that. _“Oh that’s because there’s certain pressure that comes vith the other tvo nicknames”, Ivankov had said while the younger man had averted his eyes, as if the subject was embarrassing and emotionally exhausting to him, “The older people usually look dovn on'v him despite of'v him being quite skilled despite of'v his age, vhile many of the younger v'folk idolize him precisely because of those skills”. Law had looked between the two before opening his mouth._

_“Then why are you leaving him with us if he’s truly that skilled?”_

_Ivankov smiled sadly before ruffling the red head’s hair, earning a faint sound of protest. It wasn’t quite enough to make out how the man sounded like, but it was enough to tell them that the person didn’t like being touched in that way._

_“About a year ago, his memories of his life before he joined us started to disappear, so I figured that it’d be a good idea to v'find a capable doctor to look into it”, they said while pushing the man towards them. From the looks of it, the man was very nervous, scared even, his eyes darting between the faces of the pirates before shooting a pleading look at Ivankov. But Ivankov wouldn’t budge. “I have a ‘vfeeling that he’ll be safer with v'you than he is with us”._

Law sighed once more as he kept staring at the new crew member, his own tired eyes trying to figure out why the other one would have such tired look on himself and why he’d never uttered a single word within the past two weeks. Ivankov had told him that the man was shy and took a long time to warm up to people, but this was ridiculous. Just why did he have those black circles around his eyes, why was he still oh so silent? And why did he look at his crew with such an odd expression? As if he was trying to remember them from somewhere else but failing to?

It had taken a week for the man to settle himself in and to learn the layout of the submarine. And then he’d learned that they didn’t have a cook, so Eli had just assumed that role and started to gather up a list of their allergies and preferences. The way he’d done it was almost instinctual, so Law had felt the need to ask him if he’d been a chef in the revolutionary army.

But he hadn’t.

He also somehow knew dishes that Law had never even heard of before. Like a small pie that was made of rye flour and rice. Oh and porridge made of rice. Usually, Law would’ve hated anything that even made him think of bread, but those small half a toast sized things? They were delicious.

But he had no idea how he knew how to make them. And it clearly bothered the man greatly. If anything he seemed upset over not remembering.

As the night fell on the crew, most of the men (along with one woman) retreated to their private spaces to silently, and not so silently, doze off. The captain himself stayed awake with Bepo as per usual, both talking about where they’d head off next. The duo was so concentrated on their task that they didn’t even notice how a piece of living darkness slipped past them. The being was done with its evaluation of the crew and was now headed to the place where it would be heard by everyone at the same time, yet wouldn’t be noticed. Right above the sleeping area, in the air ducts.

The person slid inside with an ease, worming his way inside the surprisingly clean and salt free environment, to the center of the submarine, where the air ducts connected. It was just large enough for one average sized person to sit in straight.

He brought his legs into a lotus style and took a breath.

A faint sound made its way into the ears of the navigator, who instinctively looked around. This didn’t go unnoticed by the captain, who was quick to fall silent in favour of listening to the noise himself. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, he’d never heard such voice before. Disarming, calming, dangerous. Without a fail, Shachi and Penguin were quick to sought him out to report the sound, few others who hadn’t fallen asleep yet doing the same. The crew was sure that it was the doings of a ghost, but Law wasn’t so sure about that.

Trying to figure it out, his eyes noticed something, which made him remember one last thing.

_“Oh v'one more thing”, Ivankov said as they turned around, their eyes gazing towards the captain of the Heart Pirates lazily. “The v'first thing v'you’ll ever hear of that boy, is his singing. It means that he trusts v'you”._

Law glanced towards the air vent with a slight smile, perhaps the red haired man would soon speak to them as well.

“Don’t pay mind to it, it’s probably nothing. Now, get back to your rooms and get some sleep”.


	6. Reckless Bastard

Law stared at the lamp without blinking. He'd just witnessed R sneak in the kitchen in dark, hitting himself on the furniture in search of something. After a while of looking around, and getting himself bruised, the man had finally taken the coffee jar out of the cabin and started to make himself a cup of good ol' papa joe. It was amazing really, the redhead had managed to make that cup of coffee and sit down opposite of him without getting burnt or fallen over, it was an achievement of its own right. After staring at the man in the darkness, Law had noticed that R's eyes were peculiar colour. They weren't really brown like he'd anticipated nor were they green, it was something in between. And the outer part of the iris had a black circle. That's not what he found interesting though, nay. It was the fact that they were glowing similar to cat's and the pupils weren't exactly round, they were slim slits. He coughed.

R jumped a little, his eyes widening in slight panic. Law put the lights on.

The doctor could clearly see how the other man stared at him a little before relaxing, and more interestingly his pupils widened turning into large black discs. How peculiar... "You could've asked someone to tell you where things were, Eli-ya", the raven stated as he raised a mug onto his lips. R sighed, his eyes closing in the process. He started to tap on the table top. The blackboard they'd found didn't end up in the use they'd anticipated it to be used. R had ended up using it as a way to mark down the week's menu and the allergens and hung it on the hall right out side the dining room. They'd had to adapt to his kinda but not really morse code.

" _I was too embarrassed to, I am the cook after all. I should know where everything is by now_ ", Law eyed the man who was now drinking from the cup he'd brought with him.

"There's no need to feel embarrassed over such thing you know. You haven't been on the ship for too long after all", if he was honest with himself, Law was very much annoyed with the man and his muteness. After all, he'd been there for a full month now and during that time he'd only used his voice to sing for gods knew what reason, never allowing himself to be seen doing so. The ten member crew he'd managed to gather had been confused by this behaviour and he'd been forced to explain it over and over again. It was frustrating. The manual had turned out to be just observations of behaviour and how to read R, not how to get him to relax and talk.

" _But there is. I am supposed to know better_." and there came with his habit of beating himself up over even minor mistakes. Mistakes that weren't even a threat to anyone's health. It wasn't good for him to do so, to blame himself over things going wrong. Just what was his problem?! Everything he did was as if he was apologising over something, asking for forgiveness, and not in the same was as Bepo did. Bepo didn't see himself as a bad person after all. R did. R seemed to believe that his entire existence was wrong, that him wanting things was wrong. He'd give his possessions away unprompted, claiming that the other person needed them more. He was a self-sacrificing fool who didn't realise that self care didn't make him selfish.

"What kind of life would a man have to live in order to believe that he isn't allowed to do mistakes or look after his own health?" Law asked finally, wanting to crack the code. A painful look went past R's pale face and he suddenly looked a lot older, a lot more worn and tired, like a soldier who'd been at the front lines for twenty years.

" _I can't remember, I'm sorry_ ".

R had left the kitchen after that, bowed deeply his eyes closed, hair covering his facial expression. And Law had stayed there, seated behind the table with a cup of coffee, only the second cup with a painted picture of a cat on its side proving that the other man had even been there. He knew that the man didn't see himself as a crewmember, he knew that the rest of the crew didn't quite accept his presence either. But Law had no idea why it was like that. He himself did consider the former revolutionary to be a valuable asset to the crew, his cooking had proved to better their fighting abilities and to improve their health. He had fought by their side and proven himself to be a fine swordsman. And yet.. He was a unit of his own, apart from the rest. Never coming near the rest.

As if he didn't think himself to be worthy.

Unbeknownst to Law, it'd change very soon.

He was falling. Something he hadn't expected to happen. He felt his back hit the surface of the ocean and how his body became heavy. While he himself was panicking over falling into the ocean, his rational side was trying to keep it together. Bepo would dive after him, save him, he was sure of it. The longer he fell, the darker his surroundings grew, he could see the bubbles that were rising towards the surface and the longest strands of seaweed move beside him along with the current. Where was Bepo? His limbs felt heavy. So so heavy.

He could hear the distorted sound of something hitting the surface.

»Bepo? I am here! Can you see me?«

He felt sluggish hands and legs tie themselves around his waist and chest. A head leaning itself against his shoulder and a mop of red hair entered his vision. Shachi? Had Shachi come to save him? But why would he act as if he was suddenly heavy like steel? Something tugged at them. The surface started to come closer. The brightness was nearly blinding after what had felt like an eternity in the murky ocean water. The person who'd saved him let him down gently before he himself fell on the deck less gracefully. Law stared at the man in growing horror and confusion.

"WHAT THE FUCK ELI-YA?! YOU COULD'VE DIED WITH THAT YOU IDIOT! YOU'RE A DEVILFRUIT USER, YOU CAN'T SWIM!" the captain yelled at the man, whose only response was to laugh after he'd successfully coughed most of the water from him lungs out. He wasn't wearing his sunglasses, and from the looks of it they'd fallen into the ocean. His face was twisted into a pained look, caused by the brightness of the sun. R opened his eyes, and a pair of golden orbs stared at the captain, making him gasp in surprise.

They were a pair of intelligent eyes that had seen way more than one would expect, Law knew, he'd seen it in his own silvery grey eyes himself. The cat eyed man got up from the deck, his expensive noble like clothes completely soaked and dripping. He threw his hair back from his face. "I am more than aware of this sir, that's why I made sure to tie the rope around myself and make sure that when I'd reach you, the weight of both of us would trigger the mechanism of the hoist and lift us up", Law blinked. This was the first time he'd ever heard him talk. Rising his hand to shakily point at the red head, he opened his mouth.

"Don't ever do anything as reckless, you hear me? This is an order!"

The redhead smiled at him in a slightly awkward and shy way, and for a brief moment Law thought that he was seeing Corazon standing there in front of him.

"Aye sir!" 


	7. Aid

Shachi stared at his captain one brow up, how the tall man was sprawled onto Bepo as he slept, both of them having chosen to nap there. It wasn't really that unusual thing to witness. Oh no, it was actually very usual, a daily thing he'd done at the exact same time ever since they were children. What was not usual however, was the red haired man who was resting his head on the said captain's shoulder while holding a lunch box on his lap. It appeared that he'd went to hand the thing over, but seen that the captain was resting, sat down to wait, and fallen asleep himself.

His sunglasses had fallen off a while ago, the noise having been the thing that had made Shachi curious in the first place, his eyes now being seen by the world. Surprisingly enough he looked like a normal person. Maybe it'd be his pupils that were odd. Bummer.

As the ginger kept staring, Law stirred awake. Feeling the unfamiliar weight and warmth against his left shoulder and arm, he turned his head to check what it was. Seeing the younger man fast asleep made him smile softly and change his position, allowing the late teen to use his stomach as a pillow. "Why did you change the way you react to him captain?" Shachi asked quietly, making the man in question look at him. The raven left out a burst of air through his nostrils, face thoughtful. "Well.... While the rest of you were out drinking at the harbour, Eli-ya managed to prove his loyalty to me. And be very reckless about it or so I thought", he said as he wiggled slightly, unfamiliar with the sensation of being used as a pillow in this manner. His partially tattooed hand diving into the red hair to feel it.

The hair was soft as you'd expect it to be, but some of them appeared to have very strong cuticles which were sharp enough to manage to cut through Law's thin nails, fracturing them a bit. Fascinated by this, the doctor investigated this a tad more by running his fingers through the red locks. As long as he allowed the hair to move naturally and his touch was light, nothing happened, but the second he applied some pressure.... He pulled his hand out to investigate the results. His idex finger's and thumb's nails had now notable chips to them, the thin line that told him that the nail was about to break running all the way to middle. He'd need to cut and file his nails today or otherwise he'd have a case of sharp fingernails going through his white gloves.

"How can you tell? He doesn't even talk!" Law shot a warning glance at Shachi as he felt the redhead shift in his sleep. He'd noticed that the man had trouble sleeping and if this nap moment would let him have at least a couple of extra hours and not end up destroying their dinner, he'd allow this. "He does talk, to me that is, but he's not yet comfortable with the rest of the crew. Did you bring the items on the list?" "Yes, though finding pencils was a hard task".

A pale hand suddenly moved up to hold onto Law's hoodie. Had the man woken up? The two followed silently how the red haired man moved. His movements were slow and sluggish and he made an "mmmnnn" sound as he did. The young captain's eyes widened from surprise when R settled back down, his head now resting on Law's chest, on top of the heart area. As he stared, R left out a satisfied sight, nuzzling onto the hoodie in his sleep. It appeared that he was listening to the heart beat, instinctively wanting to hear it better. Surprised looks were shared between the captain and the finger haired man, even more so when they heard a faint whisper from the man.

"Sabaody.. Monkey... Auction.... Escape...."

Law looked up at Shachi, who was frozen where he stood. "I guess that we need to check Sabaody sometime in the future"

Shachi stared at the sleeping figure while his beloved captain carefully took the bento he'd finally noticed. Moving the lid aside, he was surprised to see that it hadn't turned into questionable form where everything would mix together into a potentially inedible monstrosity. He started to eat the lunch.

Shachi on the other hand was trying to figure out how and why R was talking to the captain or in captain's presence but not anyone else. Oh he'd been now present when he spoke, but you could hardly count sleep talking as talking. Oh how he wanted to just grap the man and shake him real good, make him talk by begging him to stop. R stirred in his sleep, finally opening his eyes and revealing the sharpest irises Shachi had ever seen. The cook blinked couple of times, his mind trying to register just where on earth he was, all the while the sunlight was apparently hurting his eyes. When his eyes caught the fabric his head was resting on, one could clearly see panic seep into his being as he jerked violently away, face redder than a tomato.

 _"!"_ he left out a sound of flusterment, his hands raised up defensively. His eyes were wide from shock and his entire body shaking. But Law didn't pay mind to it, he was too busy eating a rice pie, the only "bread" he'd ever accept onto his plate. _"!..!"_ "You don't need to apologise for falling asleep Eli-ya, I can't blame you nor will I scold you. I know that you're suffering from insomnia"

R dropped his hands, his shoulders following after as he relaxed. He looked around in search for his sunglasses no doubt. "So... When do you think you will be able to talk to the rest of us?" Shachi asked while R found his eye sparing devices and put them back on, visibly relaxing completely. R turned at him, but this time it seemed like it was easier to read him now. Or was it that he allowed himself to be redd? "You only talk to the captain and the rest of us feel a bit left out", surprisingly enough, the redhead didn't respond with knocking. Instead he left out a harmonic hum from his throat. It sounded like he was either thinking or that he'd understood what he meant. No wait, it was definitely the latter, the previous would've been a lower, longer, sound.

The same evening, the crew was surprised to find the cook sitting on a sofa in a samurai like position while holding the newly bought sketchbook and a single pencil in his hand. Intrigued by this, Penguin loitered closer, and to his surprise, R didn't shift uncomfortably or shuffle away from him. Not even when he sat down. He looked at the page, which held a clearly in a sketching phase drawing of the crew. "What are you drawing?" he asked watching how the left hand of the man moved, the pen scratching against the paper and leaving very soft outlines. Each line was short and softly added slowly turning into a curve that'd eventually create an image of a hat. The right hand of the redhead hovered over the table he'd pulled closer, his index finger's fingernail soon tapping onto the surface. _"I figured that I'd visualise the level of comfort I am at with the crew."_ Oh... Alright. That did make sense but.. "Don't you know it already?" " _You don't_ "

Penguin saw how Bepo rolled towards them, also curious of what the pale man was drawing. There were symbols on next to each member, hearts of all things, and the amount of hearts was clearly corresponding to the amount of comfort the man had in the presence of the person. The drawing of captain had five hearts coloured and fully shaded, Bepo had three and half, Shachi and Penguin both had three and Ikkaku had two and a one quarter. The newer additions to the crew however? Most of them had gotten barely past one and one person somehow managed to have negative hearts. How that was possible, Penguin was too scared to ask. "Can you later on tell me what every heart means? As in... Shachi and I have three hearts but how does that correspond to the relation between us?" the pen came to halt.

It seemed like R hadn't thought of that yet or expected someone to ask. The pen carefully moved to the side and started to write. More people gathered around him to observe.

**_» 1st heart = singing, 2nd heart = nickname, 3rd heart = memorising your likes and dislikes, 4th heart = talking, 5th heart = .... «_ **

The man came to halt, his brows furrowing as he thought. He probably hadn't needed to think about this before. After a while of silent pondering, the pencil touched the page once more, neatly writing down the word "Trust". Penguin wasn't going to lie, it hurt a little to see the that word as the final reward or so to speak. He, too, had redd the manual the Okama Queen had given to them, several times actually, but none of it really explained this. "So.... Uhm... Once we get to that fifth heart... Will you.. Will you tell us why you're taking such a long time? Like... I want to know what causes you to be so untrusting of people?" his question was met with a shrug, guess that depended on how much of his memories would be left when they'd get there. And Law wouldn't tell them anything either, he respects the privacy of his crew way too much for that.

Law pulled out the captain's log book, ready to mark down what had happened during the day. He rather sensed it than saw the door to his cabin open, making him look up. R had rather peculiar presence to him, it was very captain like and Law wasn't doubting his capabilities of becoming one of he really wanted. Actually if there'd every be a Heart Pirates Grand Fleet, he'd make R one of its commanders with Shachi, Bepo and Penguin. Ikkaku was a potential pick too but it wasn't certain the she'd wish to be made into one instead of allowing her to continue as the mechanic. The doorway appeared to be empty, which made Law furrow his brow. He had a feeling that the man was in the room, he could sense him.

A tiny mew from next to his leg followed by something soft touching him made the young captain look down. It was a small cat, about the size of a housecat, black by its colour and bright yellow eyes. Had he not taken a notice of the ears that were slightly differently shaped, he would've assumed that it was indeed a cat. He stared at it for a moment. "Your zoan form is rather small Eli-ya", he said earning another meow. Not moving a muscle, Law watched how the animal formed cook readied itself and jumped onto his lap, loafing himself once he'd steadied himself. The captain smiled, petting the smooth and silky fur of the black panther with his left hand as he wrote onto his logbook.

"You've been more stressed lately", voice from his lap suddenly said, making him look down. No, R was still in a feline form, but he was talking, his eyes glued on Law's face. "Well...", "You don't need to explain, nor do you need to defend yourself, I know. Sometimes you don't even notice that you're stressed". Law nodded slowly, resuming to his task of logging. It didn't take long for the other to talk again.

"Whity is very close to getting to the point where I'm comfortable enough to talk with him, Shasha and Guin are taking slightly longer", "I see... Do Bepo, Shachi and Penguin know how you feel about them?", "I gave them a little something that helps them to understand it a bit better".

The raven glanced at the loaf of jaguar on his lap, idly wondering why it was so small, but also noting that the other man was slightly anxious. "What's the matter?" he finally asked after pondering it for a while, hoping that this time around he'd get a straight answer. R shifted on his lap. His ears went down and tail started to flick in thought. "The newest crew member you took in, Baeg, something's off about him. I don't... I don't think that he's a safe person. I've been trying to make it so that he doesn't know that I'm here", ah... So that's why R was using this form. Speaking of which. "Your devilfruit is the neko neko no mi, model black jaguar, right? Why is your full zoan form so small?" a tail flick. R's expression turned into a thoughtful one. Or... Presumably a thoughtful one. Law wasn't entirely sure, it was a lot harder to read the facial expressions of a feline. "I guess... It's because of my lack of control over this body? Maybe it'll grow into the full size once I have it under control properly? I need to check how it works, maybe train", R finally said while an amusing thought made its way into the captain's mind. "What about we get you a diamond col-" "Do that and I'll scratch your eyes out".


	8. Temper of the Cook

It became something of a tradition for Shachi, Penguin, Bepo and Ikkaku to sit in the dark corner of one of the largest rooms with R, watching him draw something and chattering with him. Ikkaku would sometimes talk about devices that she'd like to make and the cook would sit down for a second with a concentrated look on his face before sketching out something akin to a blue print, silently handing it over to the mechanic. Ikkaku would take a look at the thing and mutter about it potentially working before running off for quite some time. About a week later she'd showcase the thing proudly to to the man, who'd clap excitedly, sometimes even flashing a smile.

They were quick to notice that whenever Baeg, a man with a dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, would enter the room R's reaction would shift into a careful observation. From looking at him, they'd also see that his eyes narrowed and his irises turned into cat like slits, his entire body shaking just from him trying to stay put and not attack the man on sight and tear his throat open. This made Penguin remember the sketch, and the one person on it that had negative hearts. Baeg had negative hearts. Bepo, who'd recently had become fourth heart level had talked with R about it, learning that R had a bad feeling about the person. Naturally Bepo had asked if he could share it with Shachi, Penguin and Ikkaku, and the man had agreed.

Baeg walked towards them, not noticing R, who'd assumed his jaguar form, yet. Assuming his zoan form had become a habit whenever he was near a person he didn't trust or had a bad feeling about. "Oh! I see that captain's pet is with you! Did he make these? Hahaha what a talented panther!" the man extended his hand towards R, clearly to pet his fur. R backed away from him, fangs bared and growling lowly. Baeg looked at him, offended, before a sneer made it onto his face. "A feral beast. Captain should put a leash on him", he said before turning away, "But I must say that I am very much at awe when it comes to the ship! It even has an automated cooking system!". With that, he was gone, but R stayed as a jaguar for the rest of the day, clearly bothered by what had gone down.

"You need to do something about Baeg captain! He's being rude towards our cook!" Shachi yelled as he slammed his hands on Law's work desk. Penguin nodding furiously next to him. Law stared at the ginger his brows shot up in surprise. He hadn't expected the man to go from near hatred to "If anything were to happen to Eli, I'd kill everyone on this ship and then myself" within the span of a single week. His eyes looked between the group that was there in his cabin, the four pairs of eyes staring at him with a serious look in them. "What do you mean by that, exactly?" he asked carefully. Surprisingly enough, it was Bepo who answered him. "Captain! He keeps calling Eli your pet! And then he called him a machine that automatically makes food and a feral beast! We need to get rid of him!" the polar bear's eyes were serious and misty. The navigator didn't like the idea of someone objectifying anyone, as a member of the mink tribe he'd had his fair share of that. "He also said that you should put a leash on him! A LEASH LAW! CAN YOU BELIEVE THE AUDACITY!" Penguin continued his mouth forming a thin line, showing his displease. The raven put down his pen carefully. "I'll think about it, but for now we need to get to the next island so we can stock on medical resources, herbs and more bandades, the more recent fight we dealt with left our stock low".

R didn't return to his real form for a week. And whenever he left the kitchen, he'd stick next to Law. Not a single moment would pass without him walking by his side or resting on his feet. Sometimes he'd rest on his shoulders. This continued well into the next one, soon followed by the third. He wouldn't let anyone else but Law touch him, his eyes fixed on people he'd find suspicious. He'd growl, fur standing up as his face turned into a snarl. The reason of his discomfort soon learning to fear the jaguar on board. He had it coming though. Everyone knew it.

"CAPTAIN! YOU NEED TO PUT YOUR FUCKING PANTHER ON A LEASH!" Baeg screamed as he held his bleeding hand with fresh bite marks. R had finally snapped and done the first thing he'd deemed to be right; a warning. The rest of the crew stared at him unimpressed. One of them lit a cigarette. "To be honest, that was kind of your own fault. He's been giving you the signals that he doesn't want to be touched and you still stuck your hand close", Penguin said as he flipped to the next page, "Oh hey! There's another rookie on the seas! They call him Monkey D. Luffy". Baeg stared at the crew that was mumbling in agreement. He couldn't believe it. These people. They were taking the side of an unintelligent BEAST OVER HIS?! HE WAS THE VICTIM! "You tried to put a leash on him, he doesn't like that", Shachi added moving a chess piece forward, "He probably had a master who made him do that and it hurt as hell, so he doesn't trust humans too much".

"BUT WHY IS HE NOT LETTING ME NEAR THE CAPTAIN?!? I AM A CREWMEMBER I HAVE A RIGHT TO TALK TO HIM!" "He's chosen Law and he's going to protect him with his life. That's how felines are"

Baeg took a look at the jaguar that was sitting in front of the said captain on the floor. He didn't like to admit it, but it seemed like the creature was reading into him. Seeing into him. Even now it was staring at him, without blinking, observing. Knowing. Protecting? From him? But why?

"Eli is very good at reading people, he knows if they are unwell or have not too good tendencies", Bepo piped in as he moved his own chess piece and knocked over the pawn, "sorry". Law stared at the large feline, idly wondering how the Zoan form had indeed grown the longer R had been using, learning how its controlling worked, he was now almost the size of a full grown jaguar. It was astonishing. Yet... "Eli-ya, let him come to me, I need to check the injury incase it needs stitching", the captain said, watching at the feline formed being. R's tail moved back and forth as he glared at Baeg, yet he moved to the side, hopping next to the raven. Baeg showed his hand and the captain took a hold of it carefully. From the looks of it, R had been careful about it since the teeth marks only went deep enough to draw blood, yet the way they looked... "Did you perhaps try to forcefully pull your hand away while he was holding onto it?" "Psh, DUH"

Law's eyes narrowed as he pieced together what had happened. R had just prepared dinner so he'd probably exited the kitchen when the man had been attempting to put the collar on him. The redhead had reacted by taking a hold of the said arm firmly and the man had tried to battle the jagu-...... Oh. _Ohh_.

"You hit him didn't you." Law's voice was cold as ice and the rest of the crew perked up, their eyes glued on the man. The captain of the Heart Pirates let go of the hand. "The wounds aren't that deep so I trust you to know how to handle it", his icy tone continued as he told the man where to find the first aidkit. Baeg turned around, furious, confused and even more ashamed. Not because of what he'd done, but because he'd been caught. The maggot fled the room, missing the spectacle that'd follow after.

Law turned towards the jaguar with a firm look and R immediately looked away. "Let me see", he said but the other one wouldn't budge. "This is an order, Ren-ya", the usage of a different name made R jolt. And he gave in. His feline features melted away revealing a young man with bright red hair and amber eyes. One of which supported a clear sore spot that was about to bruise. Law took a hold of his chin, his free hand extended expectively towards Penguin. "Cold press". The man immediately ran into the kithen where the cold presses were held.

R flinched when Law pressed it against the bruising eye, but he chose not to say a word. He didn't need to. Those who hadn't yet seen him that much stared in awe, they'd never seen a zoan user prefer to use the full animal form, they hadn't even known that one of them was a zoan fruit user. "Who's that?" one of them asked, never having seen him before. Shachi stood up proudly gesturing at the redhead. "This man is our cook! His name is Eli!" the crew stared at R in awe, how he silently accepted the treatment. "You usually don't take this long to get any of the items I ask you to, what was the hold up?" Law asked when he was done with R's bruise. Penguin smiled devilishly, his teeth bared as he cackled. "Oh, I just ran into a soulless bastard", his voice was light, very casual, but everyone who really knew him, knew that it was a bad sign, "So I may have introduced him to my right hook~".

Law noticed how R stiffened and his undamaged eye stared at the door. If his irises were large when he looked at Bepo, Shachi, Penguin or Law, now they were as small as the sharp edge of a needle. They weren't sure how it worked, it just did, and he had no control over it it seemed. He slowly turned back into his zoan animal form, the cold pack now resting partially on his forehead and muzzle. Without missing a beat, Shachi caught the thing as it was about to fall and kept it on its place. The door opened and Baeg walked in, holding a cold pack over his eye, his hand bandaged. "What happened to you?" Law asked, still observing R's behaviour. The man shot an ugly glare at Penguin who had a shit eating grin plastered on his face. "The first-aid kit fell on me", he muttered taking a seat on the opposite side of the room, not noticing how the rest of the crew inched away from him.

It'd be a week later that the Heart Pirates would be fully aware of why their captain had called their cook reckless idiot. And it happened during a fight of all things.

Shachi could see from the corner of his eye how Law fell on his back, a marine hovering over him about to stab his captain with a sword. Baeg didn't notice what was happening being him, or didn't care which was more likely the case. The bastard. None of them would make it there in time.

A black blur made it past him, Shachi blinked, recognising it as R's jaguar form. But... R had been on Polar Tang? The jaguar hit the sword, changing its course. It then fell on its paws, becoming a shield between Law and the marine. But it didn't end there. As it glared at the enemy, it turned back into R, who stared at the marines without blinking.

" _ **Do NOT touch MY captain**_ ", he growled with a low voice causing the battle come to halt. He wasn't wearing his sunglasses, obviously having hurried there and forgetting them in the process. The marines stared at him, the Heart Pirates stared at him, Law stared at him in shock. R hadn't spoken to anyone without first taking a long time to get to know them, out of the group this only meant Bepo and Law so far, and now he had just done that to the marines. Warned the marines from coming closer.

"Isn't that--no it can't be... Revolutionary Ren doesn't have a...", "Oh no, I think you're right... It has to be"

R got up in one smooth movement, pulling his rapier out and immediately throwing himself at the enemy. He was like a hurricane on a small scale and with the ability to target people. His face was twisted in anger, teeth bared and eyes concentrated on those who were standing too close to the captain. Shachi couldn't help but to stare at the redhead and how he systematically got rid of the marines. His usually calm aura was distorting and stretching in his anger, and one could almost hear the flood of curses that were going through his head. When the last marine at his close proximity fell, he turned to look at those who remained, his chin was down in challenge, sword pointing at them.

" _Come at me ye yah bastards! I'll chop ye intae pieces, turn yer baawz intae rocky mountain oysters an' force feed them tae ye!_ " he yelled at them and whatever it meant, it sounded scary as fuck. Surprisingly enough, there was not a single curse in that sentence, and taken in how utterly pissed of the man was, it was an achievement.

As the crew returned to Polar Tang, most supporting mild injuries, at least some of them had a newly found respect towards the chef. Though Baeg had no idea who the hell the red head had been and he'd failed to find him afterwards. 


	9. Fourth Heart

Polar Tang made it to the harbour and its captain stepped out, he'd return in few hours with the medical equipment and herbs. And as soon as the crew could see him, they rounded up in search for Baeg.

They found the sleazy man from the kitchen where he was attempting to steal food, R had gone into the captain's cabin for safety. It was an odd thing really, the whole thing. He could've gone to his own cabin, but instead he'd walked straight into Law's where Penguin had seen him jump onto the captains bed and curled into a ball to nap. Maybe he just felt safer there, maybe it was to ensure that nobody would sneak in there to read the logs nor to take anything that the captain saw as important. Like the sword that was nearly the height of the captain himself. Either way, Penguin had whispered quietly into the room that they'd take care of the pest and left the cook to his device.

And there they were now, staring down at the glutton who'd been treating the only person who could cook on the entire ship like a wild animal, shown cruelty towards him in his animal form and on top of it hadn't lifted a finger when their captain had needed it forcing the chef to run to them from Polar Tang, which had been on the opposite side of the town, to his aid, revealing his presence to the marines.

"Oh hey guys, what's up?" the maggot said to them, smiling nervously as he held the bottle of sake on his arms. Sake, that R had told them to be only served on special occasions. Sake that R had specifically chosen himself. The only bottle of the high quality sake that their chef hadn't allowed anyone to drink from. Bepo snatched the bottle away from him looking angrily at the man, who tried to get it back. "Our chef handpicked this sake for celebrations", he said with a low voice. Baeg stared at him dead in the eye. "This ship doesn't have a cook." he said bluntly earning a series of low laughs. Penguin and Shachi took a hold of the man's arms, making him drop the food he'd been hoarding. Ikkaku caught most of the items, only one of the glass jars not making it out unscathed. "WH- What are you doing?! I am your crew mate!" Shachi smiled at him in an unnerving way. He was showing a little too much teeth and him wearing sunglasses with his hat didn't really help that much. "Well, _crew mate_ , we are about to do a ten minute mutiny and throw you overboard for disrespecting our cook, our captain and for being a major dick", he said, still smiling, but his voice was that too high fake cheerfulness you do when you have to sit through three hours of your toxic relative talking about weather and all you can say is "Oh really?" in different tones.

The group dragged the man, kicking and screaming, to the deck, Shachi and Penguin holding onto his wrists and ancles while Ikkaku had gathered his belongings. The crew cheered when the trio prepared to throw the pest overboard. Baeg noticed the mysterious red haired man looking at them from the window, and his blood ran cold for a brief moment. Just who was he? As he kept staring at the window, the man's eyes turned more beastly and a pair of black fuzzy ears appeared slightly higher than where his actual ears should've been. He paled. Had the panther he'd kept complaining about been a crewmember? And from the looks of it a rather high ranking one.

The mischief duo let go of Baeg and watched in dark pleasure how he fell into the ocean, briefly surfacing to yell at them before a tactical heavy bag fell straight onto his face. The crew watched how the man sunk under the surface, couple bubbles coming up before stopping. They were fairly certain that they hadn't just murdered the man, but even if they did, it probably wasn't a bad thing.

Law went over his list once more to ensure that he'd gotten everything he needed, getting them to the ship wouldn't be a problem with his devilfruit powers, and he had now a little over ten people on the ship too. Thinking back to the predictions R had recently given to him, mostly about Sabaody and another place, the young captain bought another set of IVs just in case. R hadn't been too specific about it, but he'd told him that he'd end up saving at least two lives before the year would end. He'd also looked rather sad for a moment, his eyes growing misty, before he'd told him that an adoptive father and his son would lose their lives unless they'd be fast enough.

From the looks of it.... R had a rather complicated relationship with family. Their late night talks had revealed that he adored both of his biological parents, but he also held great respect towards the revolutionary army, seeing Dragon and Ivan as his second set of parents. When asked about siblings, he'd said that he preferred step siblings and full siblings over half siblings, looking slightly uneasy, but he adored his older sister, younger brothers and younger sister even if they weren't in this world. Law had assumed that they'd died and apologised for causing him to remember such things, but the man had simply smiled at him gently. Continuing the conversation, the redhead had stated that he had been burned by his grandmother by accident while his Nana had been a beacon of what it means to be strong, he'd only had one grandfather figure, who he claimed to have been laid back, had a sense of humour and a huge appetite for sweets.

However, their names were something that he had trouble remembering, he was fairly sure that his mother's name Shoshanna while his father was called Steve. Or Stefan. But he couldn't remember the names of his siblings that he apparently has six in total, nor the names of his grandparents. And for a man, who clearly loved his family more than anything, it must've been painful.

Creating a room and using shambles to move everything on the deck of Polar Tang was more than easy task for him. It wouldn't take him too long to walk back to the ship either. Or usually it wouldn't.

You see, Law found himself thinking back to that fight they'd recently had with the Marines. He'd been surprised by R's interference and even more so him being so ready to act as a human shield and take the bullet for him. Luckily his appearance had made the fight halt for a second before the marines had come to the conclusion that he was his own brother. So now he had two bounties. But the thing that had mostly shocked him was how he'd looked at him, as if he'd been scared that he'd die, eyes pleading him to survive, checking his body for major damage at one swift glance. And it'd dawned on him.

R probably had seen death before or sensed that someone was dying at a young age and blamed himself for not being able to help. That's why Law had pulled him to the side, asked about his family.

R had fidgeted uncomfortably, before finally.

_"I... I've sensed death coming for my relatives, and felt guilty for not telling them about it, and later on regretted not saying goodbye", R had looked at him, looking so tired and so much older than he was, "Only one of them had also known, I inherited my sense from her after all". Law had been shocked to learn of this, that this man's sense was so fine tuned that he'd been able to predict deaths of others. "And that... During that fight when you shielded me?", he'd asked from the redhead, who'd just ruffled his red hair in thought, looking troubled. "Well... I was at the market at that time, buying some food and paying the people to carry them on board when I felt a sting in my heart", his eyes were looking elsewhere, seeing elsewhere, "My intuition told me that you were in danger and that I keeded to hurry, so I did"._

Law stepped on board, instantly seeing that the load had already been taken down to where they belonged. When he took a look at his crew however...

It was clear that something had happened. Looking around, he noticed that R was in the row, not as a jaguar but as himself, but Baeg was nowhere in sight. He raised his brow in question he didn't even need to ask to get an answer. "Baeg decided to leave the crew", Penguin said cheerfully. From the pleased atmosphere that was radiating from the crew, Law could deduce that something else had happened. "Bepo", he said to his vice captain, who immediately cracked under his gaze. "We threw him overboard because he was stealing food and alcohol from the pantry and he'd been disrespecting bot you and Eli!" the bear flinched, realising that he'd failed his fellow crew mates. Immediately lookin down, he uttered an apology, which was met with mumbled "Don't apologise".

Law looked around the faces of the guilty, noting absent mindedly that R had a slightly surprised look on his face, but to what, the captain wouldn't dare to say. "Well.. I was going to tell him to leave the ship anyway so... No harm done I guess", he said as he walked inside, leaving behind a confused pirate crew, "We'll be setting sail in an hour".

Law returned to his cabin and laid down to take a short nap. Looking for a good position, his nose caught a different scent from the one he usually recognised as his own. Confused by this, he sat up, raising the covers onto his face. Closing his eyes, the captain of Polar Tang concentrated on the smell. It was warm and homelike, reminded him of the simpler times when everything was better, happier. He could smell coffee and vanilla and something else he couldn't quite put his hands on. He'd need to ask a few questions about people changing the bedsheets, mainly of the soap they used, he kinda liked the way this one smelled.

Shachi and Penguin sat down with Ikkaku, they'd noticed that their red haired cook had made four course meal which had their favourites with a twist. But why, nobody was too sure. One of the special sakes was also put to do a round much to their astonishment. They'd almost fully finished their meals when the man himself had approached them. He seemed to be anxious about something. He opened his mouth. But instead of the speaking style they'd expected based on what they'd witnessed during the fight, they were surprised to hear a completely different accent. "May I sit with you?" it was well spoken and clear, reminded them a little of the way how a high class person would speak, yet it still had that darker sounding a in it and the consonants were very soft. 

Shachi blinked as his brain took a moment to register what had just happened before he grinned. "Of course! Please do!" none of the trio had any idea why they'd suddenly jumped onto the fourth level, but they didn't really care either, it was more important that he talked to them now.

Law walked into the dining area, where he heard laughter, to his astonishment, it was coming from R, who was now chatting away with Shachi, Penguin and Ikkaku while Bepo was sitting opposite to them listening. The more he stared, the more he could pull similarities between R and Corazon, their little mannerisms, they both were actually very smart and capable too, strong and so so clumsy. Though R wasn't on the level of Corazon's clumsiness and set himself on fire, he still did have his moments of klutz.

The man turned to look at him, directly at him, as if he'd somehow known that the captain had been standing there. His face brightened up even more, and he beckoned him to join them. "Law! Come sit with us!" it was an odd sensation, to hear one of his crew mates refer to him with his first name. He honestly didn't know why the habit of calling him captain hadn't rubbed on the redhead, but it didn't really bother him that much. It was actually nice to be referred to by name. It kept you grounded.

"Eli! You can't just call captain that!", Bepo scolded him earning a smug look from the redhead, who was seated between Shachi and Penguin.

"Bold of you to assume that I give a damn about who's my superior"

Yes, R had a complex relationship with family, but you could be sure that he'd never turn someone away just because he personally didn't like them. He was a warm person, and to him, family wasn't about blood.

Family was about connections and making effort to understand one another. 


	10. When the cook is sick

Law observed the way R communicated with the rest of the crew, he was a lot more relaxed around them and more chatty. Yet he also ensured that he had times when he shared more private conversations with the captain himself, and the raven valued this. What he wasn't too sure about however was the cook's habit of napping on top of him in his zoan form. The now adult jaguar was heavy and it was more than clear that R was using this to his advantage, forcing him to stay down more often and actually sleep. It hadn't helped him that he'd recently learned that R could purr. IN BOTH FORMS AT THAT! The man was just incapable of doing a regular r sound and as a result of his pronunciation being as soft as it was, it sounded like purring.

  
And it'd turned out that he'd had that even before eating the damned fruit.  
Law stared at the cook's resting form that was holding him down, the large feline purring while that captain himself was pinned down onto his bed. Sure, he could use room to get out of this situation, but at the same time... Well. He'd learned that the crew had ganged together on this matter and thus used either Bepo or R to make him rest more. And he couldn't really complain about it, they meant well after all.

  
The jaguar suddenly shifted and the feline features melted away. Or..... Most of them did. To Law's shock the ears and tail stayed. "... Oy, Eli-ya....?" he said quietly, his voice making the redhead raise his head to look at him. The raven stared trying to comprehend what he was seeing. R's face was flushed, his eyes looked unfocused and they were also half lidded. "Mmmerp?" Law blinked. "Are you.... Or rather do you feel a bit faint?", he asked from the man who tilted his head in thought. R blinked few times, it seemed like he was purposely letting him see that he was doing so before he leant closer.  
And touched Law's forehead with his own, a small tap sound emitting from it before he resumed to his position, head resting on Law's chest. The purring never ceased and soon Law saw that the other man had closed his eyes, probably falling asleep. He placed his palm on the redhead's forehead, quickly removing it while cursing.

  
Fever.  
Their _cook_ had a fever.  
That wasn't good.

  
Law called for Penguin and explained the situation to him, together the duo moved the man to his own cabin and under the covers. After brief checking, the doctor-captain came to the conclusion that it was caused by high stress and lack of sleep. Which honestly made sense, R suffered from insomnia and his stress levels had skyrocketed when he was forced to deal with Baeg. So now that the immediate threat was gone, his body decided to take all the lost rest back at one go. This came with his body raising his body heat to the point where he'd have no choice but to rest. The doctor cursed himself within his own mind. If only he'd thrown the pest out sooner, this wouldn't have happened.  
He walked out of the cabin, looking grim as he so did, did any of the others have even a clue of how to cook? Last time Law himself had done anything even remotely similar was when he had been with Cora-San. Shachi and Penguin might also be able to help a little, though they might not like it. The Polar Tang would have to do without the redhead's cooking for now.

To their luck, R's fever came down within a couple of days, but their captain would make the man rest for the entire week. Getting over sickness took a toll on your body and thus extra rest was always recommended and required.

R looked at the stew Bepo had brought him. The stew was a milk based one with potatoes, fish and some vegetables. He curiously took a spoonful of the thing, swiftly placing it in his mouth. It wasn't bad per say, it just lacked the spices he'd learned to associate with a similar dish, which just so happened to be soup; dill and parsley. Bepo watched the man as he ate the thing, eagerly waiting for feedback on it, but receiving none. Instead, he ended up witnessing the man eating the entire thing at one sitting, clearly carefully dissecting the flavours.  
They had come to the conclusion that R's throat might've been slightly damaged upon him talking so much after months of silence. So they'd figured out that the best course of action would be to make foods that were throat friendly. Law had gone through the pantry in search for something that R might've made notes on, only fi onding a slim booklet, no doubt self made. Most of the recipes were easy to make, which was a blessing, it almost seemed like he'd made it in case he'd be unable to cook. There was also a thicker book, size of your small notebook, also filled to brim with recipes. However, some of them couldn't be deciphered by the trio and thus they'd had to pass on them.

  
"Eli, how's the food?" Bepo asked excitedly from the cook, who was now chewing the last bit of the dinner. In the dim light, R's eyes looked dark brown, light really did wonders to how people saw you. The man placed the plate carefully on the small table next to his bed. "The person who made this had a good idea for the dish, but there were few little things that were done wrong; they didn't use water to boil the potatoes nor the fish, hence the latter was a bit chewy and it probably took a bit longer to cook and they didn't use any seasoning. I'd say that the perfect balance would be half of the liquid be water and other half milk, that way people wihh lactose intolerance can also eat it. As for the seasoning... A dash of butter and some salt, dill and parsley. They did do a marvellous job otherwise", Bepo nodded as he took these notes. The thing with R and how he gave feedback to others' doings that the crew appreciated was how bluntly and honestly he said things. He'd tell his honest opinion on the subject at hand and then give tips on how to better it, be it drawing, singing or cooking, and he also made sure that the person whose doings he was criticising knew that he still valued the way they'd done the job as well. Few times he'd even gone as far as complimented the idea someone had had and said that he'd attempt to use it himself later on. And he didn't discriminate nor choose favourites.

Law stared at the slip of paper Bepo had given him, his brows furrowed as he redd through it. "You know, I hate to tell you I told you so, but I told you so", Shachi said as he kept reading the thing over his shoulder. The captain shot a glare at him. He'd been trying to make one of the soup dishes from the notebook, but he hadn't been able to read some of the text. Though he had no idea why boiling the items in milk wouldn't tenderise them nicely. "Yeah so, milk burns reeeeal easily if you try to boil it, you gotta add a lot of butter in the pot and let it make this funky thing there before you add milk and you gotta watch it aaaalll the time", Penguin said lazily from the sofa as he shot a meaningful look at the kitchen, "If you value your life, you really should start scrubbing the pots and pans captain".

On Sunday, the crew welcomed their chef back with tears in their eyes, wailing loudly. Sure, Penguin, Shachi and the captain had tried their best to feed them, but it just didn't taste quite right. Curiously enough, Law was somehow banned from the kitchen and for some reason R found himself with an entirely new collection of pots and pans.  
He didn't get to wonder why for too long though as they'd arrived at Sabaody.

From the way R was acting, it was more than sure that something was about to happen. He was restless and kept phasing back and forth. Sometimes he'd glance out of the window, as if he was waiting for something. Or someone.  
This anxiousness was enough to make the man even forget his sunglasses, which was rather unusual as he only left them out if he was indoor in a dimly lit room. If anything, it told them just how important thing that was about to take place really was.


	11. Sabaody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I had trouble with this one because when you think about what exactly happens during the auction scene, it'd be just a blur of action and chaos, you wouldn't be able to keep track of anything.
> 
> Nobody is entirely sure of what happens during that max 10 minutes in world time.

They were hanging outside the auction house when the other pirate captains started pouring in. Law felt a hand touch his shoulder, squeeze it in a way that told him more than enough that the pirate who was currently walking past them was someone who shouldn't be trusted. "Hey X-Drake! How many people have you killed?", the captain asked while smiling infuriatingly. The man, X-Drake, shot him a side glance, soon entering the auction hall. From the corner of his vision he could see a Celestial Dragon come nearer. The second the man had gone inside, Law got up and freed his slave, Jean Bart of all people, offering him a place in his crew. The captain had shot a glance at the cook for verification, to see if he could be let in, and the answer was positive. "Let's go", Law said, taking Bepo, Shachi, Penguin and R with him to inside. Inside the dimly lit hall, it was even more prominent that R was growing more and more anxious, more uncomfortable, the further inside they went.

And it was no brainer to figure out why. R valued freedom and the right to choose your own destiny. Just like how he was true to himself, never compromising over his own identity, honestly and bluntly telling others how he thought about things. And now, he was in a place that embodied everything he was against. Corruption, imprisonment, torment, stripping others of their pride, slavery, being forced to do things you don't want. It must've been torture for him, even more so that he knew that he shouldn't do anything that might attract the marines. He was a former revolutionary. His whole being was against this place.

The auction was about to start, more and more people poured in. "Hey boss, take a look at that", "Well I'll be damned, Trafalgar Law from North Blue, worth two hundred million", "I've heard some ugly rumours of him"

Law turned his head towards the other crew, instantly recognising them as Eustass Kid and his crew. Swiftly, he raised his hand while maintaining eye contact with the respective captain and flipped him off, still smirking. "He must be a fan of me too", the red haired captain remarked. Commotion at the stage made the man look at the happenings, one of the slaves, once a fellow captain, falling on the floor bleeding. The rest of the auction happened in a blur, a mermaid was being auctioned, a Celestial bidded for her, another captain entered the house.

......with a flying fish.

The young captain yelled out a name and ran towards the stage, a merman hanging onto him, trying to make him stop. Law knew where this was going, especially since the Celestial Dragons were there. He stopped paying attention to the commotion in favour of keeping his cook calm. The redhead looked like he was about to move himself, barely being able to contain his anger. Shaking his teeth grit and eyes concentrated on the Celestial Dragon who'd just shot the merman, Carlos. "The Monkey is about make his move captain, don't look away from him", R said with a rhaspy voice, damaged from talking. Law felt the change in the air and prompted by the words, he turned to look, just in time to see the younger captain punch the Celestial Dragon.

All hell broke loose.

The scaredy herd that were the world nobles scattered like dust in the wind, none of them daring to look back. Only the pirates remained. Law watched at the Strawhats who were fighting against the guards, his mind cataloguing each and every member. He'd seen their bounties before. His eyes caught the sight of a young woman, fifteen at most, who was dodging the enemy, aggravating them in favour of making them follow her, leading them towards those who could fight, in the line of sight of anyone who had the chance to deal with them. And from the looks of it, she was someone the crew fiercely protected. Her thick strawberry blonde hair swaying back and forth as she danced away from danger. He felt R's slim hand catch his shoulder, holding onto it and give it a squeeze. Law turned to look at him. The shocked expression on the man's face telling everything he needed to know.

"You know them?" "No, not all of them, only one of them really"

R let go of his shoulder falling onto the chair. "That girl with the horns is called C, she's... I used to babysit her when she was small, before-- I can't believe it, she's alive, but how? The island it... It sunk. I know, I saw it in the news, it was the reason why my parents decided to become travellers", his voice was filled with emotion, his rhaspy voice sounding like he was in a turmoil. "Eli-ya, we need to focus, I am certain that the Marines are-", something washed over them, causing Law to stop what he was about to say and look at the stage. His eyes widened in disbelief. "This place is in an uproar, the auction has ended", the voice of an old man echoed in the now empty hall, "I was hoping to steal from whoever bought me too".

Silvers Rayleigh, former vice captain of the Roger Pirates, the legend himself, was looking around the hall. No doubt trying to piece together what had happened. They were too shocked to really process what was happening in the current situation, all they knew was that Rayleigh was talking to the merman and he was not happy to see him injured. "I see... I know what happened, you've gotten into quite the mess haven't you Hachi? You're the one who saved them right?" the old man stated looking around, "Well then". The aura washed over them again, the three pirate crew that were left watched how the enemies dropped like flies.

"No way", Law mumbled, he couldn't believe it, the weight he'd felt briefly, the will that was strong enough to overpower his own. This was no ordinary man, he wasn't your regular grandpa with a gambling addiction. Of course Law had heard the stories of the strength of the Roger pirates, of its two strongest members but this... This was... "That strawhat of yours... It really fits a fearless man as yourself", Law shot a glance at the youngest captain, he wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but it seemed like the boy had been approved.

Eustass was talking something about the marines and how they'd need to fight their out as the marines would treat them as accomplices to the crime of the Strawhats, but Law wasn't really listening. He was more interested in R, who'd brushed past him in favour of getting nearer to the strawberry blonde girl. He didn't think that he could trust the Strawhats to not attack. Just like he was anticipating, the blonde man who was smoking a cigarette turned to glare at him with the mossgreen haired man. The cook raised his hands up in a calming manner. Shachi and Penguin were not aware of the common past of the girl and their cook, the duo snickering to themselves about the possibility of the group being confused by his muteness. But...

"Hey C! Been a long time, ay?" the redhead said, making the Strawhat Crew look turn at him. The girl stared at the man, first looking confused before the look on her face brightened. "NAO! WHAT YOU DOING HERE?!"

"WHAT!?! HOLD ON! THAT'S NOT FAIR!! WE HAD TO WAIT FOR MONTHS FOR HIM TO SAY A WORD!" Shachi screeched from the background, completely ignored by the two. "Ah well, I may have recently joined a crew as a cook", "Pfft, is it the Heart Pirates? I bet it is you gay peacock", "OY! Don't expose me like this ya brat"

The Strawhats inched closer, asking questions from the girl while the man fell silent.

Had it not been for Eustass to say "If you babies can't handle a few marines, just sit here while I show you how a real man takes care of things", successfully pissing off both captains present. Law was quick to place an order on his companions who fell on the step immediately, though to his surprise the girl now known as C stuck to R's side.

Eustass Kid couldn't help but to watch in slight awe at the red haired man, who wasn't too far from Law, clearly protecting his little friend, potentially a younger sister. He'd already noticed him at the auction, but he hadn't been able to tell whether or not he belonged to a crew. From the way he dressed, it seemed more likely that he wasn't official member and had just asked to be dropped off somewhere. From the looks of it, the girl and the man were a package deal, and while the girl wasn't too keen on fighting, she wasn't a complete weakling either. He could tell it from the way she hadn't even flinched at the thing the old man had done. With the right training, she might just become a fearsome warrior.

As he kept observing them, he noticed how the man's sword appeared to turn black from something. How he seemed to be able to predict to some extent what his opponent was about to do. He'd heard rumours of this man, his bounty was left nameless for now, only referring to him has the brother of the Revolutionary Ren. They said that he was fierce and as unforgiving like the mother nature herself, a typhoon with a sword and a gun. His silent yet strong aura washing over others and overpowering them with ease. "Oh! You can use armament haki, Nao?" the girl said giving a name to the rumours, the man shrugged. "The revolutionary army has a mandatory haki training to its members, as far as I know I am capable of using all three, but I am trained in the armament and observation haki the most", he said as he swung his sword, changing its course midway into a stab, "Conquer's Haki is harder to learn and to control, so it'll take a long while before I can use it eff- ashh I really need to switch into a different blade".

Interesting...

Law didn't really have the time to pay attention in the happenings on his right, he knew that R could take care of himself, but he couldn't help but to hear rather interesting change of words. "The continuity is changing a little C, I think that we're the cause", "In what way?", Law mixed the nearest bunch of marines into Frankenstein like monstrosities, intensively listening. He couldn't quite understand what was being said, but he was sure that he could be able to understand it in the mean time. "Well", after that, R's speech somehow distorted or he changed the language he was speaking in. It sounded vaguely like the one majority of the people of this world spoke, yet not quite. Either way, he couldn't understand.

The rest of the fight happened in a blur to him, he was sure that he was being purposely annoying to Eustass, sliced up a cyborg and witnessed how the Strawhats were spirited away by Bartolomew Kuma. He'd also ended up dragging his cook away to Polar Tang, dully noting how he was holding onto a piece of paper with numbers on it. The girl was still following after him and before they'd managed to hop into the submarine, Eustass Kid called after them.

"Hey! You! Redhead and the girl! How about joining my crew with that friend of yours?!" he yelled at the duo. R tilted his head as if he was considering before shaking his head. Leaving the taller captain confused. "What? Why not?" Law watched how the two handled the situation, he wasn't sure if R would talk to him or not, after all... It seemed to be rather selective thing to him, his anxiety induced muteness. "I am sorry sir, but I already have a captain who I'd kill and die for, and he's standing right behind me", Law raised a brow at this, usually R wasn't this polite to anyone. The redhead turned at C in anticipation.

"What will you do now? The Strawhats were whisked into the winds of the world after all. Will you be okay?" the girl left out an amused huff before she punched the young man on his arm. "Geez Nao, you're sounding like an old man! But yeah, I think so? I'll just stay here and wait them to come back, maybe go to Shakky and ask her to train me", she stopped to think about it a bit further before nodding her head, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, she could teach me all that information gathering shit".

"Sounds good, I'll make sure to call you every now and then to check up on you", "Even though this is fairly touching moment, we really need to get going now"

Law and his crew climbed on board, and R gave one final wave at the girl telling her to take care of herself, before he too disappeared inside the ship. The Polar Tang fell inside the earth, navigating through it as if in water, until it made it into the actual ocean, where it moved quickly away from the island, disappearing into the darkness of the water. The marine wouldn't be able to find them anytime soon.

Law flopped down to lean on Bepo, who was already sleeping after having suffered some injuries from the fight against the cyborg, R following the suite while assuming the form of a jaguar. It was no use to rush now that the Marines were actively looking for them. 


	12. Unstoppable will

Ikkaku wasn't sure how she should feel about the whole situation. She'd been feeling a little bad the previous night, no doubt because of her monthly cycle soon kicking in, so she'd gone to sleep early. And when she'd woken up, she'd found R in his jaguar form napping on top of her stomach. The warmth made it a bit more bearable, and the slight pressure also seemed to help a little. So far, she'd only ever seen R do this to the captain, the only one the knew to be level five hearts. The implications of this were... Rather heart warming if you asked her.

"Alright alright, you can get off now", she said to the animal, who immediately complied. She watched how R waved at her with his tail before leaving the room. She couldn't help but to wonder what was going on inside his head, what prompted him to do as he did. R was a mystery to them, despite of not necessarily hiding anything.

Law glanced around the room as he walked in, he'd just redd the news about the execution of one Portgas D. Ace being scheduled for later next week. None of them really knew him personally, but the notice of him being the son of the former King of Pirates was very much big news. "Law", R suddenly said as he stared out of the window with an expression that he redd as longing. "I need to go to the Alcatraz of this world, there's someone I need to see", Law furrowed his brows upon hearing the words that fell out of the man's mouth. The more he spoke, the more odd and cryptic sounding sentences he mixed into his speech. "Alcawhat?" the redhead turned to look at him, holding a pair of sunglasses on his hand. "Alcatraz, the inescapable prison, it's located in middle of the ocean and only few know where its located", "You mean Impel Down?" "Yes"

"Absolutely not. I am not letting you go there and get yourself killed! That's my final word!" Law said as he turned around and crossed his arms like a child that'd just lost in rock-paper-scissors. "He's already gone captain", Penguin said as he pointed towards the window, where one could clearly see one of their emergency mini submarines, courtesy of Ikkaku, speed into the distance. "Oh for fucks sake! BEPO! COURSE TOWARDS IMPEL DOWN!" the raven said as he dived towards his cabin in search for any kind of clue how to get the redhead come back.

After a while of going through notes, his own and the ones provided by Ivankov, he noticed a denden number simply labelled as "Incase of R going absolutely feral". Without a second thought, he called into the number.

"Sab-" "IS THIS THE REVOLUTIONARY ARMY?! REN-YA JUST TOOK A MINI SUBMARINE AND HE'S HEADED TOWARDS IMPEL DOWN AND I NEED SOMEONE TO HELP HIM TO NOT GET KILLED!!!" "..... Roger that, I'll be on my way"

Number two of the revolutionary army turned to look at his boss, the Revolutionary Dragon, his eyes asking for the permission. Which he was granted. Without a second going to waste, the man jumped into a ship, which left immediately. He wasn't going to let his aloof brother figure die. He'd seen the news too, and the blonde was more than sure that the redhead was planning to save the unknown pirate. R had always been like that, trying to save others at the expense of his own health and sanity. It was as if he'd never considered the possibility that he might die in the progress.

Ivankov blinked few times in surprise. There, right in middle of the sofa they'd brought to level 5.5, sat R smiling innocently at him, eyes glowing in the dark. "Hi mom", the man said successfully making the okama present freak out safe for Inazuma. "Ren-boy? Vhat are v'you doing here? Hov'd v'you get in here?" the redhead had grown noticeably taller during the time he'd been on the Heart Pirates, but from the look on his face, he'd never lost his playfully mischievous nature. R moved into a more comfortable position." Oh you know... Walked in, made a wee hole in the wall, found a tunnel and followed it and tadah", had it not been the cook we are talking about here, this would've been the truth. But since this was R indeed, the reality was even more bizarre. He'd quite literally just walked in as if he'd owned the place, without even bothering to do a uniform change, and it had worked. It was weird how that happened really. If you hold yourself just the right way, you can get away with almost anything without being questioned.

"By the way, I'd go check the outskirts pretty soon, a baby gorilla and a duckling should be there any minute now and they are not okay"

Ivankov blinked a few times before he turned away from the man, clearly taking his words seriously. An unknown okama approached Inazuma. "Who is this person?" he asked carefully from the scissor human, who simply sipped some wine from her glass. "That Ren, a former revolutionary, and technically speaking he's Ivankov's adoptive son", "HIS SON?!?", "Oh and he has the ability to see into the future"

The redhead straightened himself, stretching his arms as he did so, before he'd started to walk towards the exit. "They should be there around this time, they're important people, and they will need some help", Ivankov joined his son, Inazuma soon following the suite with few others. And just like the young man had anticipated, there lied two men on the ground, cold and dying.

R looked at the two, he already knew who they were, he'd had the memories of them follow him since the beginning of that year while everything else was blurring. Monkey D. Luffy and Bonbon. That's who they were. He watched how Luffy plead Ivan to save Bon-chan, he already knew that Ivan would be moved by his selflessness. He heard the boy call the dying okama his nakama. And he was glad that his friend had ended up becoming a Strawhat. He watched how Ivan scooped the boy up while the rest of the group took the young okama.

Tbere were a lot of things he wished that he could tell his parental figure. Where'd he come from on that day, what his real name had been in the other world, names of his friends and family, what it was like to like in a world that had such a different geography, the people, the good, the bad. But he knew that he never would be able to. He also wanted to tell Ivan what he knew, really knew, not just the sudden and short descriptions that he had to reform into cryptic messages and aloof lines, everything.

But he couldn't. Something wasn't allowing him to. So he'd assumed that it also meant that he wouldn't be able to change anything in this world. And if he was being honest... He did feel a bit lonely in this world. Talking to Law had helped a lot, they had few things in common after all, but not quite. Speaking of the captain... He was probably worried sick already and panicking, even if R had left them ready to eat food that only needed to be reheated that'd last for a few weeks. He'd known that it'd happen and he also knew that Law would scold him once he'd return. Especially if he was hurt in any way.

R derailed after the okama, making sure that he wouldn't be noticed. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't supposed to be there. But at the same time he wanted to talk to Ivankov.

Ivankov noticed how the redhead's actions shifted, a glassy look crossing his face. A silent song erupting from the man's throat as he moved along. But she wouldn't question it, she never did. R would tell everything once he was ready.

Of course R was aware of his own feelings and how he felt about certain things. Even more so, he knew that he was attracted to his captain, you'd have to be blind to not be even at some level. But that was exactly the problem. Law was his captain. Romance between crew mates was.. Well, from what he could remember Oda saying about his creation was that he wouldn't be adding romance between any of the crew mates. That wasn't really the problem though. What was the problem was R's own mentality about these things. He liked to be professional about who he worked for. He remembered vaguely the time he'd had a crush on a fellow classmate back in middle school and how guilty he'd felt about it, he'd viewed that person in a similar way as a work mate and he'd learned from TV that work mates should never date or it'd be messy.

But above all, he felt scared. He had no idea what was this world's stand regarding homosexual relationships, he didn't know what Law's own philosophy was, he didn't know how to bring it up, he simply didn't know. And he was afraid of his attraction making the others hate him. He'd already experience it once in the past after all, and it had left him broken and scarred, afraid of trusting and moving along.

As he watched the plot unfold before him, he came to the conclusion that it was for the best to ignore his own wishes for the sake of his captain and the crew. Wait it pass. He'd done it before, and he'd be able to do it again.

He had to.

Sooner than R had anticipated, he found himself running next to Ivankov's side, just like in the old times. Not sure what had compelled him to follow, just feeling the need to be there. He pulled his sunglasses down in thought. The cell was going to be void of Ace and they'd free Jinbe from there. They'd also end up doing a daring escape all the while the rest of the lower levels were fighting amongst themselves. R felt a chill go down to his spine. The whole reason why Blackbeard had sold Ace out had been for one purpose alone; to be able to walk in and out of Impel Down and gather only the strongest and most dangerous criminals to follow in his lead. And to start the war which would give him the opening to get Whitebeard's devilfruit power.

Before long they were on the ship, sailing towards the Marine Ford. R turned around towards the sea, already knowing that the Polar Tang wasn't too far. Soon enough he saw the familiar pipe which was used to see whether or not the surface of safe. He made a tapping motion against his palm, knowing that his message would be heard.

Law gritted his teeth as he deciphered the message his cook was giving to him. "Something important is about to happen, and we must bear a witness to it", there wasn't anything he could say about it, he knew the expression on R's face more than well. The cook wouldn't back down, he wouldn't return to the ship quietly. And since he saw that this event was Important with a capital i, Law was sure that it would be worth the danger. And so, Polar Tang followed after the group silently under the water.

"Mn? A! You're that guy from the auction!" Luffy suddenly said as he pointed at R, who was now leaning against the reeling. Jinbe froze onto his spot as he saw the young man. "Mm, I wonder... Was it really me or was it not~", the redhead said, rubbing his jaw in a faked confusion. Ivan knew better than well what it meant. And he wasn't sure if he liked it. R suddenly grinned, revealing a pair of sharp cat like teeth, and leaned forward. "If something happens to C while she's in your care, I'll tear your limbs piece by piece, you got that you little gorilla?" Luffy's eyes widened in surprise before it was replaced by a happy grin. "GOT IT! Are you Shi's big brother?" he asked making the older man step back. R tilted his head a bit, knowing that Ivankov was listening to him closely. "Not by blood, I used to look after her when she was little, so I guess that I got a bit attach-".

Ivan noticed the way R cut himself off, his attention suddenly being taken by something else. The redhead turned towards the ocean. A smirk made it to his face.

"They're coming~ Whitebeard is coming to save his boy~", the way it was said made a cold shiver run through Buggy, Ivankov and Jinbe. It was loaded with an intent, a certain level of blood lust, but by design they knew that it wasn't directed towards Whitebeard. All three of them knew R as a revolutionary first and foremost, he'd actually been number two previously, he'd answered only to Dragon. And his bounty spoke volumes of his skills.

"Ren-boy, v'you better not get too hasty out there, they might think that v'your presence means that the Heart Pirates are taking part in this var", Ivankov warned the man, who simply adjusted his sunglasses calmly. He then looked up at the man and smiled. "Oh don't worry about that Ivankov", the purplenette immediately knew that the man was serious and exited of what was to go down, "They believe that there are two different people who just happen to look the same".

R's smile turned into a full blown smirk.

"I have two different bounties under two different names". 


	13. The man who challenges

Sabo felt like slamming his head against the wall, of course R had already left the prison and was now travelling towards the execution place. That reckless son of a-

At least Ivankov was with him so he might not die immediately. Just what on earth possessed him to go this far? Well... The captain he was sailing with had told him that the redhead had referred this occasion being something that'd need to be witnessed, but that could mean literally anything! R was a feral bastard who'd tell you that something was important only for that "important" thing turning out to be the limited edition pancakes in Dressrosa! Not that Sabo complained about that trip to the café in that place, just that he did that sometimes. So they'd turned the ship around and started to journey towards the Marine Ford. Cursing loudly.

Law wasn't entirely sure of what he'd expected when he'd started to follow R to Marine Ford where Ace's execution was to happen, but he was very sure that it hadn't been this. Polar Tang, while still under water, was now filled with anxious pirates, who were observing the happenings with the periscope. And it was honestly just chaos to them. That was until they managed to get a track of R, who was being rather destructive for someone who preferred to stay in the kitchen. "So... Uhh... That's a thing", Jean Bart said as Bepo informed them that R had just managed to behead someone with his sword, which notably didn't have a blade to it. The only thing that could be used to even draw blood was the tip. Law pinched the bridge of his nose. Just... Where on earth was that guy he'd called for help?

Sabo was speeding through the war zone, actively looking for his red haired comrade. He had no time for the row soldiers, he had a brother to punch and scold. Oh he was so going to punch him in the face. And then into gut. And then into face again. Because R hadn't called even ONCE during the three years he'd been gone. The bastard. He probably was having fun all this time. Messing around with pirates, sleeping around, probably getting some gal pregnant in the progress. Though Sabo knew that R wasn't that kind of guy, he openly despised touching other people.

Wherever he looked, there were just people he didn't recognise, and chaos. And then... In one of the moments, he saw the two pirates, Luffy and Ace, and his body just moved on its own. Ace was struck and was severely wounded, the younger male going into a state of shock and eventually passing out. He had no idea why he was doing what he was doing, but he soon found R running next to him. "GIVE LUFFY TO ME! WE NEED TO GET TO THE POLAR TANG!" the red head yelled as he saw a blur of blue appear next to him. The man who joined them looked tired as hell, yet still like he was able to kick their assets to next week of he wanted to. "We'll take care of these two, my captain is one of the best surgeons alive, you guys concentrate on taking the fish dude and your captain onto the ship and following us, we can save all of them".

Marco stared at the revolutionary duo and as he did, the redhead's sunglassed gave in and broke, falling onto the ground. He was sure that he'd seen those features recently on another captain, but that man had had only one arm. Hearing the man's request and seeing his honest eyes, he complied and turned his head to holler at his crew the orders. The reaction was instantaneous.

R ran past a tall and muscular man who was wearing a black cape, neither of them really minding another as they passed each other. The older man had a war to end and the younger had a precious cargo to carry.

The Polar Tang rouse up to the surface, and Law stepped out. "Eli-ya, what in-", "NO TIME TO EXPLAIN BUT THIS BOY CAN'T DIE!"

The captain stared at his cook and his serious eyes and before he could react, a third person was carried in, a fish man of all people. He stared in silence for a moment. Then.

"Take them all to the surgery room, Shachi, Penguin, prepare for the operation we're leaving immediately", he said his order as he looked towards the Marine Ford, something telling him to wait a little longer.

Bepo was panicking, they needed to go underwater ASAP or they'd be toast, but the captain just wouldn't budge. "Captain! We must go!" he plead, but the man would simply stare. That was until a strawhat came flying towards them.

Sabo placed Ace on the table while R did the same to Luffy, Jinbe soon following the suite. He had no idea what was up exactly, but he felt like he-

A wave of nausea and pain hit him and the blonde dropped onto his knees gasping for air. It was painful. So so painful.

"It'll pass in a while, don't worry Sabo, once you wake up, you'll have your brothers with you again"

He blacked out.

When Law arrived into the room, he quickly noticed the absence of the blonde man who'd been following R while carrying the other unconscious Ace. A quick conversation told him that Sabo had a case of amnesia and that seeing Ace and Luffy had triggered his memories to return and he'd passed out. He simply nodded as a response and got to work while his crew was helping him.

To Law's surprise, R knew more than enough to handle Luffy's and Jinbe's injuries, which left more room for him to treat Ace. But as he worked, he couldn't help but to notice.

"You're spacing out Eli-ya, what's wrong", he said as he stitched together Ace's chest after a long time of him first repairing his heart and lungs. The sound of bandages being wrapped around something halted for a brief second before resuming. "One of the pirates present, I believe he's known as Buggy, said that I look just like my old man, but.....", R sounded confused as he spoke, his back turned to Law, "My father and I look nothing alike, if anything people could mistake you to be his son. I always took after my mother".

Law didn't say anything to this, how could've he? He didn't know the man's family, none of them did, but they did have some assumptions about it. For example the bright red hair of the cook spoke volumes to many of them, his ability to use haki even more. So they'd assumed that the man was the illegitimate son of red-haired Shanks. Except...

R hadn't shown any recognition towards the man as he'd ran past him, not stopped for even one second to talk to him. He glanced towards the Marine Ford, idly wondering if anyone else had made the connection. Law wiped his hands clean and gave a nod to the crew, who immediately moved Ace away into a confinement room for recovery, they expected him to stay in coma for a few days, week at most. He moved to work on Jinbe, while R was still working on Luffy, who'd sustained more critical wounds. "Ack! STRAWHAT STAY PUT! OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO NEED HELP OVER HERE! IF THIS KEEP UP HE'LL GO INTO A CARDIAC-ARREST!"

Law rushed next to the man, who was having trouble holding the teenager down as he kept trying to get up, clearly traumatised by what he'd seen, and most likely thinking his brother having died. "Eli-ya move to take care of Jinbe-ya, I'll handle the rest when it comes to Strawhat-ya", "Roger"

He moved his attention to the teenager, trying to figure out how to stabilise him. Sure, he could ask R to do that thing but... Would it work? He should at least try. "Eli-ya? Could you please sing a little?" he felt R's confused gaze on his back, but the cook complied nevertheless as something that sounded a little like a lullaby in a different language soon echoed through the room. Law felt himself relax and under his hands so did the teenager. As he worked, checking the raven's breathing and whether or not his throat and lungs had suffered any sufficient damage, he could sense how his crew turned assistants was also reacting to the singing.

Eventually, the young captain settled down and fell asleep, prompting R to stop singing. He glanced at the captain, who nodded, they could now leave all three patients to rest.

"The Empress is waiting for us", R said as he offered his support to Law who was clearly exhausted from the crueling experience, "And the Whitebeard Pirates were supposed to be following us". The captain nodded tiredly, though he didn't accept the support from the cook, he knew that R felt uneasy and uncomfortable when touched. He'd even scanned him once to see why it was like it was and he'd found out something rather interesting. The young man's brain was wired differently from the usual, and it seemed that this caused his senses to be naturally a lot sharper than the norm. His neurology sent and obtained information a lot faster, there were less hoops for them to go through, less distractions. But also with that he was very sensitive to different triggers. Law had spent several hours, maybe hundreds of them, trying to map the key differences between R's brain and the brain of the person who he'd deemed to be closest to a normal. Which had been Clione. He'd actually researched the brains of every single crew member of Polar Tang and come to the conclusion that high stress levels caused changes to the brain, what the implications were however, he wasn't sure yet.

The duo exited the submarine, immediately meeting with both Marco and Boa Hancock, the latter making R stiffen immediately. This didn't go unnoticed by the captain, who made sure to observe the man's eyes, and true to habit, there it was. The thin pupils. He'd come to the conclusion that the pupils were an indicator for whether or not the redhead liked someone, but it wasn't sure what exactly caused it. As Law kept observing him, he saw how the male turned towards Marco, his eyes immediately returning to their previous state of either neutral or liking the person.

R turned to look away from the two visitors, his sharp teethed mouth opening to say something. "The Strawhat is in a stable condition, but he's too young for you ma'am", he said as he made sure to take distance from his captain, to let others know that Law had nothing to do with his opinion. "If anything, as a woman who is twenty-nine years of age, your behaviour comes off as creepy and predatory, I'd advice you to look for someone whose is age the sum of your age being divided by two and added seven", the redhead said as he turned to look at her with an apathic look on his face, "Which would be someone who is about twenty-one years old".

Law and Marco stared at the cook horrified, just why had he said something like that to the woman? Hancock's reaction was instantenous as she used her devilfruit power to punish the insolent man.

.....only for it to have no effect on him whatsoever as he was looking at his captain. Confused by this, the woman tried again. And again. And again. "It won't work on me darlin'", R said as he took a step towards Marco, not caring about the Empress at one bit, "While I do find you beautiful, I am not attracted to one's body, hence it has no effect on me. I value inner beauty more". Law blinked in confusion as the cook shot him another one of his smirks, once more seeing Corazon's childlike shyness in it. And he wondered. Was it really like R had said or was there something else?

"How's Newgate?" R asked from Marco who looked like he was about to have a heart attack. The doctor grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him violently. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!? YOU CAN'T JUST SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO A WOMAN YOI", "Well, obviously I could and I just did. Honestly why had nobody told her about the whole age difference and predatory behaviour? Geez, Luffy isn't even an adult yet, he's seventeen, that's not an age where you are even interested in stuff like romance". R looked up in thought, "Though he might be a-sexual in general, but that's for him to figure out", "PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY YOI".

R took a hold of Marco's hands and removed them off of his being with the most serious and annoyed expression anyone had ever seen on his face. "But I am taking this very seriously, older people forcing themselves on younger ones who do not yet understand themselves or the world is a serious problem", he said with an even voice, speaking slowly as if he was explaining something to an idiot, "Now how is your captain doing? He was in rather bad state and then there was the whole deal with the power-hungry bastard stealing his devilfruit powers". Marco took a step back. Just what the hell was this guy's deal? How could he say something so bluntly? How could he have zero regards about his own safety like that? Just... what the hell?

"You ought to get used to him doing that, Eli-ya has a habit of saying the most cryptic things ever, he doesn't follow the orders unless he wants to either and he challenges your authority constantly", Law said tiredly from the side while R decided to jump onto the other ship as if he hadn't just challenged the Empress Boa Hancock. After a while they could hear a loud laughter coming from the other ship, which they took as the redhead finding the old captain. Law sighed. "He's going to be experiencing another person trying to adopt him isn't he?", Marco looked at the surgeon in confusion, the man gave him one tired look and started to explain.

Apparently, no matter who R met, how dangerous, how strong, how old, at some point this person would try to adopt him. "There's just something to him that makes people want to keep him, we're not sure what. Maybe it's his bluntness, maybe his honesty, maybe it's just him showing kindness to others even if he knows that they don't deserve it. It could even be the challenge he places by not trusting as easily as people assume he would". R appeared at the reeling of the larger ship. "Yeah so, Whitebeard is alive even though he looks like shit right now! Law you might want to check him just in case, no offence to you Birdy, but my captain can see more clearly how much damage a person really has taken", "ELI! DON'T CALL THE CAPTAIN BY HIS NAME SO CASUALLY". Marco looked at the exchange, noting how despite of the apparent lack of respect towards the doctor turned captain, most of the other crew was smiling at the man's actions. R jumped down, rolling as he hit the deck before landing on his feet. Marco raised a brow. "That's friendlier to your knees and ankles", the man said as if he'd known what was going on inside his head.

Law watched how the man got up as casually as he did everything, his eyes glancing towards the door. There was something he had on his mind. "We need to keep the survival of both Whitebeard and Ace a secret", he said as he dusted himself off of invisible dust, "It's more beneficial on the long run, allows them to heal properly, but also...". His eyes never left the door, no doubt waiting for it to open at any moment, "The baby gorilla will have a reason to get stronger if he doesn't know".

Marco blinked, it did make sense, but it also seemed like a cruel thing to do. Making someone live thinking that their brother had died. "I know what you're thinking right now, Marco, I know what all of you are thinking, but there's no other way. Monkey D. Luffy is an ideological person, who doesn't take things too seriously, up untul now he didn't even realise that he could lose anything. Losing Ace would be a wakeup call for him, he'd have to become stronger for his own sake and his crew's sake", the setting sun reflected from the cook's eyes and played in his bright red hair. The wind picked up and made them shiver with its coldness. But R, who usually reacted very strongly to things showed no reaction to it himself, standing tall and stable. Marco was more than confused over seeing this man not to be a captain himself, with such capabilities and headstrong nature, it was a shock that he even listened to anyone.

"I think that you should take Ace with you, make an empty grave for both of them, the world doesn't need to know just yet", R grinned suddenly, "Just imagine the uproar it'll cause later and how far the kid will have come". Law stared at R, he was hearing everything that the cook was saying, he was understanding, but he was also oh so confused. Sure, this arrangement was beneficial on the long run, but the amount of pain the Strawhat Crew would have to withstand was... "How long do you think it'll take? For them to become strong enough?" he asked making the man look at him. "Two years. And he'll have the best teacher available. If he's going to train on the Amazon Lily, he will he safe from the bounty hunters and nobody will be able to interfere", "Why are you going this far for him?"

R stopped to think about it, what should he say? What could he say? A moment passed in silence during which Hancock was still fuming over R's insult towards her.

"He reminds me of a very important person, and he's also the captain of someone I hold dear. I can't allow her captain to be weak, otherwise she might perish with him". 


	14. WHAT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you proceed to this chapter, I felt like informing you, my dear reader, that if anything seems to be unclear or if you wish to know more about how certain things work in this version of the story, you can send me an ask to my tumblr blog where I am more easily available. This blog is called where-s-all-blue and the ask box is labelled as Denden Mushi.  
> If you do end up sending me an ask however, please make sure to mention which fic you're coming from so I'll be able to revise the notes I have. After all, DenDen Tea AU is being worked on by two people who have their own different versions of how the story will go:  
> C aka nue-nue-nomi and R (I).  
> Two versions for two different crews, Straw Hats and the Heart Pirates.
> 
> Thank you for taking your time to read this story and the insanity that ensues within it. 
> 
> -R

It was Law who answered the call about an hour after the meeting with the Whitebeard Pirates and transporting Ace onto their ship. The doctor who was very much on the brink of falling unconscious from exhaustion was brought to the opposite side of that spectrum by a high pitched yelling from another side of the denden mushi. He had no idea who it was, but based on the "Nao" sounds he assumed that it was for R. "....Bepo, could you please drag Eli-ya from his cabin? I think that this is for him", he said to his vice captain, who saluted before disappearing for a few minutes. The Heart Pirates, who weren't about to crash from exhaustion edged closer to the transponder snail.

  
When Bepo returned with R, it was more than clear that he was beyond exhausted, barely even awake as evident by the fact that the bear was carrying him from the back if his shirt. Law gave the mic to the man as he fell onto the chair.  
"Mnnn R speakin'", "NAO! 'OY IS ME CAPTAIN DOIN'?! IS YER MAN ALIVE ?? YER MAN BETTER BE ALIVE NAO OR I'LL SWEAR TER BEJASUS DAT I'LL KILL YER!!" the room fell silent as it tried to understand what the actual fuck they were listening to, but it seemed like their cook did somehow understand it. "Please... Dinnae ye'll at me.. A'm sae fauchelt efter th' hail saving bides thing, ah haven't slept in twa days...", he uttered as an answer with even more rhaspy and tired voice. "OI DON'T CARE! TELL ME 'OY ME CAPTAIN IS DOIN'!" clearly, this duo was from the same Island, there was no way that this way of speech could be from more than one, or otherwise they'd be having a lot easier time to understand the duo. "Err... Shuid ah tell ye that we accidentally ended up saving baith Whitebeard 'n' Ace while we wur at it?... 'n' that Sabo is oan boord currently?" silence followed after this statement. "Ye meanin' ter tell me dat while oi 'av been worried boke an' trainin' so oi cud becum stronger, YOU'VE BEEN CHANGIN' DE TIMELINE AS YER PLEASE!??!" Law was at awe over how R was even able to keep up with the high pitched and fast phased talking. "Weel.. Ah didnae pure mean tae? it juist sort o'... Happened?".

  
They heard a long inhale sound, it was as if the person on the other side was trying to calm down. After a while she started talking again, this time speaking notably slower. "How exactly did this happen, Nao?" she asked from the redhead, who seemed to also have gotten over himself. "Well, I went to see mama Ivan, and somehow your captain managed to over talk both me and him into following him to the Marine Ford, and it seems that my captain called Sabo to ask him to get me return to the ship and as you may know, Sabo is a feral bastard, who gets distracted easily sooo", R paused for a second, "He quite literally ran between Akainu and the duo, snatched them both, yeeted Luffy at me and then we returned to Polar Tang".  
The girl started to laugh at the other side of the call, clearly finding the description to be amusing. "Yeah, that sounds like Luffy and Sabo", she turned serious, "What the next course of action? Unless Luffy thinks that Ace is dead, he won't have a reason to get stronger". The Heart Pirates inhaled sharply, this was exactly the same thing R himself had been talking about previously. "We're going to act as if both Whitebeard and Ace died, let the world believe that to be the case until the world needs them", "So I'll be seeing them in Vahhnou, I can't wait! But how's Luffy?". R paused again as he tried to gather together what he was able to remember. "He's stable and should heal nicely if he doesn't do anything stupid", "Very unlikely of him to do the smart", "Right. So based on all the factors, it's going to leave a mark because your captain is a dumbass".

As the call ended R went limb as he immediately fell asleep. Jean Bart was the one to carry him into his cabin, where the blonde man known as Sabo was still resting after his own memory returning and knocking him unconscious. After a moment of struggling, he managed to push the blonde to the side near the wall and place the redhead right next to him. He had no idea on how to feel about the cook other than mad respect towards him, after all... How many people could disrespect any captain and stay alive.

"Fucking hell with him", Law muttered affectionately, "Even his more cruel decisions are for the sake of making someone else stronger and to protect them". Penguin couldn't help but to agree on that notion, but that also made him wonder....  
Just how much had R kept from them because he'd felt like knowing about something would be a hindrance for them? They had constantly been confronted by the fact that he was fiercely loyal to them and was ready to do anything for their sake. But some things he never really explained. Like the whole deal with wanting to save the brother duo, or his real reason behind him going off as he did not to mention his reaction to the notorious Boa Hancock. Just.. How much did he know, really?  
"Hey captain?", the man asked as he adjusted his hat, "do you think that his trauma might be a lot deeper than we initially thought?". Law glanced around the faces of his crew, noting the pure worry and confusion that was written all over their faces. They'd all seen the way R acted despite of his usual shyness, they'd seen how aggressive he was towards The Boa Hancock, they'd seen how dismissive he'd been towards her attempts of stoning him. And how the devilfruit had had zero effect on him. It was as if seeing the woman had triggered something within him, and as they all were now aware if the fact that the cook's entire family was most likely dead, it was possible that the reason for their death might've been someone who resembled the empress greatly. "I am not sure, whatever it is that happened, it's more than possible that he has blocked it from his memory".

The evening passed with the crew relying in the last reheatable dinner that R had prepared them before he'd left to break into Impel Down. The redhead didn't wake up for the next twelve hours, which really told volumes of his actual level of stress and exhaustion.  
The next morning however?

The sweet scent of food was the thing that woke up the crew, Shachi, Penguin, Bepo and Ikkaku being the first ones to rush over into the dining area, where Sabo was already seated, his feet kicking air as he was writing something into a small notebook. Shachi flopped next to him, unceremoniously. "Whatcha writing?" surely, if R trusted him, it meant that the blonde was a good guy. "Hmm? Oh, just some translations to the phrases Nao sometimes says, I'm sure that you've noticed how he sometimes appears to switch into another language", he scribbled another word down, "I've been studying it ever since I noticed this habit of his". Penguin glanced at the notebook with a great interest. Sabo's handwriting was mostly in cursive, reflecting his former high standing in the society.  
"It's very similar to our language, but there are many different pronunciation rules that only apply to it. The easiest phrase which he uses often appears to be 'It do be like that sometimes' which appears to loosely translate as a way of showing that you empathise with someone, reassuring them, while it is also just being used to mean that the situation is or was something that cannot be resolved by the person themselves, but it will pass in time", Shachi blinked. It... Made sense in a way. "If you add 'but not all the time', this sentence will change into a more powerful version of it, which is most likely used to give hope to the person of the better times, reminding them that the situation isn't something that is constantly happening to them".  
It was interesting in that horrific way that you watch horror movies with, that sinking feeling in your stomach as you realise that the bad guy is right behind your favourite character, when you know that there is no way out for them and they will inevitably die. Your pulse speeds up as you keep staring at the screen, incapable of looking away. And then you realise to your horror that just like that character who was doomed from the very beginning, you are trapped. Because this was only the easier part of the odd language.

"So uhhh... How's the language study going in practice?" Shachi finally asked, too afraid of obtaining another course of weird linguistic dissection of a sentence. The scratching of a pen came to halt. Sabo shrugged, after all... He had no idea what was going on with half of the things R said and he'd known him for nearly half of his life. "I can introduce myself with it and say few simple sentences?" yeah, studying languages is like that. You spend years trying to figure out how something works and the only thing you end up learning is how to say "hi", "bye" and "go fuck yourself".   
Several plates were placed in front of them, prompting Sabo to put his studies away, eventually pocketing them. The blonde looked at the thing on the table with an obvious distain. "Really? You had to mix vegetables into it?", R smiled at him gently as a response. "Makes it a bit more filling and healthy", "You ruined a perfectly good omelette is what you did". Shachi stared at the two in shock, how could Sabo say something like that? The two men stared one another before bursting out into a heartfelt laughter. "God it feels so good to actually talk to you Nao", "Likewise, now, eat the peasant's omelette you hoe", "How dare".

This was the banter that Law walked into, and had it not been for the relaxed atmosphere, he might've though that the duo was actually fighting. The captain walked to the table, and had a seat. A plateful of omelette, which had greans like peas, carrots, and some long pea tasting green thing, mixed into it with sausages, was placed swiftly in front of him. They'd soon learned that their cook couldn't eat pig nor hog without getting sick, Law theorised that his body lacked the right entsymes to do it, hence they'd switched into other kinds of meat. R had made sure that the crew had no problems with eating something like beef nor fish and whether or not the way the animal's life had been brought to an end mattered. Nobody knew why.  
Law tasted the meat before he shot a glance at the cook. "Chicken?" he asked effectively getting the attention of the cook immediately.   
"Ah, not entirely, it's a mix of the turkey and the chicken along with some duck, I made it myself", Law nodded silently as a response, immediately digging into the thing. He honestly liked this dish a lot, it was ingenius way of ensuring that the crew got the much needed vitamins, stayed full and would be satisfied with the food.  
Knowing R, some of the dishes were slightly different, mirroring the individual needs. Shooting a side glance, he noticed the large pot in the middle of the room, one of Ikkaku's inventions that would keep the food warm. The pot was most likely filled with a mix of rice, chicken, eggs and vegetables, a kind of fried rice, no doubt to ensure that people wouldn't go hungry. The redhead saw it very important that nobody would go hungry, but this also meant leftovers. However, the cook was very good at reusing the leftovers and turning them into something new.

The whole thing with their cook wash is dislike for both wasting money and wasting food, something that was very usual for older chefs who worked at restaurants and such. Maybe his relative was a chef?  
The dining area filled soon with pirates, many of them making happy sounds upon spotting what was on the menu.  
"We should be arriving at Amazon Lily in few hours", Bepo said as he sat down with a newly filled plate. "Hmm... So you'll be leaving Luffy with them? Do you think that it's wise?" Sabo asked from Law, who shot a glance at R. The blonde redd the room, immediately accepting the fact that it was one of R's oddities that had prompted this. Though what happened next really caught him off-guard. " Yeah so.. Eli also told the Empress to stay the hell away from Strawhat because she's too old for him", Shachi said casually, making Sabo spit out his tea. ...... Right into R's face. After a few minutes of silence, the blonde grabbed the cook and started to shake him.

  
"NAO WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS BEFORE! YOU. DO. NOT. TALK. ABOUT. A. WOMAN'S. AGE!! ESPECIALLY NOT ABOUT SOMEONE LIKE BOA HANCOCK!! DO YOU HAVE SAND IN PLACE OF BRAINS??? DO YOU???" R stared at him calmly, he'd expected this especially since he'd already gone this through in the hands of Marco. "Well, she's a woman, who's currently stuck in the mentality of a teenager, which can end up with someone taking advantage of her, therefore I saw it to be more important to be honest with her than to feed into her delusions of her own wedding with Monkey", Sabo paused to think. Honestly he'd rather have Luffy to be a bit older before even thinking about dating yet alone marriage, "Oh also, Luffy needs to think that both you and Ace are dead for a bit longer. Like... Two years? Don't worry, you'll be able to talk to him at Doleslosah and it'll be all gucci".  
Sabo translated the name from both the man's soft speech and the unintentional language switch. ".... What am I going to be doing in Dressrosa after two years?", "Probably something illegal. Or eating pancakes, your choise", "You son of a-", "My mother was a very respectful woman and a scholar", "Fuck".   
"HEY WATCH YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE", R yelled as he held his hands over Bepo's ears. This conversation made Sabo suddenly remember the moment when Ivankov had walked into their training session when they were still small and asked the question "Son? Are you winning?" making R immediately lose it as he dropped his sword because of needing to laugh. Which reminded him-

"Hey Nao? You uhh... Left before Dragon managed to get his hands on it but.. The sword you saw strapped onto my back earlier? He got it for you", the blonde stated as he put his hat back on, he'd need to return to the base soon. Preferably without Luffy seeing him. He'd understood R's reasoning the second he'd mentioned the need to uphold the illusion for now. "Will I be seeing you next to him in two years?" he finally asked as he'd noticed that the other man hadn't even answered to him regarding the knowledge of having a new sword. "I'm not sure, that depends on my captain and how he sees the situation", Sabo took that as a no, he'd been around the man enough to know when he was just trying to spare his feelings and when he was just being a cryptic bastard. He walked to the door, and turned to look back. "Don't forget to call this time around will you? The army is keeping tabs on you and would like to hear of you from the source and not through the news", I can't promise anything". 

As Sabo left the submarine, R watched after him until he disappeared with the same mini sub he'd taken earlier. A sad smile played on his lips and it seemed like he already missed his friend. Polar Tang arrived at its destination and a grief struck Luffy immediately bolted into the jungle to have his mental breakdown. The heart pirates crew sat down at the shore.  
".... Are you sure that he will be alright?" Shachi asked as he and Penguin decided to start fishing. R didn't answer, his eyes staring at the horizon, waiting for the eventual appearance of Silvers Rayleigh. "Nao? Did you hear me?", "He's here"  
Law looked up from the straw hat that he'd been swirling in his long fingered hands. And true to his cooks' words, someone did indeed rise from the ocean. The old man from the auction house. He spoke for a few minutes, asking if Luffy was there, to which they answered, before he turned his eyes on R. He seemed to be taken back by his presence as he had to take a double look on him. "Boy, you don't happen to be related to Shanks?" he asked warning a confused look from R. "No, sir, I am not", the red head answered as he kept staring into the man's grey eyes without blinking. Rayleigh ran his fingers through his beard in thought. "I see.... It's just that you look a lot like him and have a similar look in your eye, guess I was mistaken", and with that he was gone.

On an isolated island, large "WHAT" yell made the birds get the hell away as the red haired man had redd the news. On the front page was the picture of a well known revolutionary known simply as Ren right next to the image of the man himself side by side, the bold letters asking the question "Is Red-haired Shanks the father of the Revolutionary Ren?". His hand was shaking uncontrollably as he redd the thing over and over again, not sure that he redd it right the first time around. "B-Benn..? Do- do you think that I-", his navigator didn't even bother to look up from his own paper where he was solving the sudoku. "With the amount of how much you've been fucking around, I am more surprised that this hasn't happened sooner", he stated as he deduced that the word he was looking for was lynx instead of a lion. Shanks turned to him. "That makes me sound like a slut and I am not a slut", "Whatever helps you sleep at night captain".  
To say the least, Benn has had enough of Shanks' shit. 


	15. Touch

"TRAFALGAR D. WATER LAW YOU BETTER BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF WHEN I GET TO YOU", the entirety of Polar Tang came to halt as they heard the echoing words of the cook. Nobody knew what had happened and even less how he knew their captain's true name. Law himself the least. There simply was something in the way that it was being said that made him immediately straighten himself like a model soldier, while also fear for his life. Was it the tone or the usage of his full name, he didn't know, all he did know was that he was in big time trouble.

He already knew why too. Last night, he snuck into the kitchen for a late night snack when he came across a bar of dark chocolate. At that moment, it had felt like a splendid idea to take some of it, he'd been sure that it wouldn't be noticed. He was more than familiar with the health impacts of such culinary and decided to-

A fist punched into the wall beside his person, a blur of a person sharpened into none other than their red haired cook, whose eyes were flaming with anger. The captain swallowed his hopes of going undetected. "Your Scent was all over the chocolate wrappers, and you are the only person on this ship beside myself who'd enjoy eating dark chocolate as it was", the man said with an even voice, "You have now hazarded the creation of tonight's dessert". The man's face inched closer, and closer. Law felt panic arise within him. "You can bet that I'll be whooping your ass Trafalgar D. Water Law", he could feel the heat of the other man's breath against his left ear.

"Ro-", his escape was stopped by a stern hand grabbing his hand, yanking it up and slamming it against the wall. "No. You won't escape. I won't allow you to".

The screams of the young captain as he was brutally beaten by a very pissed off cook made even the lousiest pirate abroad shudder and act as if they'd heard nothing at all. They all were more than aware of the man having a high bounty of 600 million beris, it told more than enough of how skilled and deadly he truly was. 

A week later, the crew found R holding two wanted posters in his hands, looking rather annoyed with something. A closer inspection revealed what it was. The first poster was R's original poster, but the other one.... "Nao? They think that your name is Nao?" Penguin observed as he looked at the bounty over the man's shoulder, which gave him the bounty of 300 million beris. The cook stared grimly at the thing, not bothering to answer. Next to him was a fresh news paper pulling readers in with the shock headlines of Shanks having twin sons.

As Law walked into this, he quickly noted how tense the man was, which honestly couldn't be good. Especially since his eyes had been at constant strain since the Marine Ford where his sunglasses had broken. It was more than clear that he truly had needed them to be able to get by. He could buy a new pair to cook from the next island. 

"They're still at it?" the male asked as he decided to use a barrel as a chair to observe the cook from. The said cook was wearing a boat neckline shirt with orange stripes for reasons only known for him. And literally anyone who'd been paying attention to his mannerisms. The soft fabric indicated that R was having one of those days where he was at low energy due to his senses being over stimulated and most of the said energy was going into him suppressing the bad feeling. But if you were to touch him now, he'd actually give out a physical reaction that he wouldn't be able to suppress. It was either he'd ignore the mental strain or keep his physical reactions to bare minimum.

The captain had once caught him off guard on a day like this.

Law stared at the back of his chef in thought, the man's form being enveloped by a striped boat neckline shirt accompanied by dark trousers. The redhead wasn't carrying his weapon with him this time, which was pretty rare of him. Idly wondering what the shirt was made of, the black haired man extended his arm to lightly tap the other man so he'd turn around. To his surprise, R moved unexpectedly, making his light tap on the shoulder turn into a hand brushing against the man's back. The reaction was instantaneous, Law could feel the man's muscles tense up through the shirt, his shoulders simultaneously dropping while his head jerked upwards, a shocked "Ahh!" escaping the smaller man's throat. Law froze. He'd never heard the man make such sound, had he really caught him off guard? Right before his eyes, the cook turned around, revealing a hazy look in his eyes, blush decorating his porcelain pale face. He wasn't sick again was he?

As the captain stepped forward, the cook stepped backwards, panting ever so slightly from something. There was no fever. Questioning look was shot into the man's direction. "Sensory overload", was what the redhead said, "I can handle it". Law doubted that notion seeing how flushed and bothered the man seemed, his entire body shaking from tension, but he chose to let R do as he pleased for now. If it seemed like it'd cause trouble, he'd just have to order him to rest.

They'd learned a valuable lesson that day about the sensitivity of the cook's nose, how light sensitivity could be cranked even higher and how important it was to avoid touching the man when he wore a shirt with white and orange stripes.

"Eli-ya", Law started as he stared at the man now as his body was starting to shake, "You need to go rest in your cabin, we'll manage with leftovers tonight". R looked at the captain before letting out a sigh, the captain was right. Especially since this time it was affecting his sense of balance as well. If he didn't go rest, he'd end up with a nasty migraine. When a crew member extended his hand to try the chef's forehead, it was Law who slapped it away giving the man a warning look. He was a newbie, the sixteenth member of the crew and unaware of what the shirt meant. To the captain's surprise, the redhead placed his hand onto his shoulder.

Over the course of time, he'd felt different kinds of touches by his crew, the affirmative types, the scared types. Some of them had a heavy hand and a strong grip, some had a mediocre grip. His crew consisted of huggers and very touch starved people, like Law himself. But R stood apart from them, rarely touching anyone while avoiding being touched himself. They'd long since learned that he had boundaries that they needed to respect, touch being one of them. And of course, they had theories of why. Most of them had to do with the fact that he was a feline type of a zoan fruit user and cats were notably the type to not be fans of being touched without permission. Though Law had noted that when it came to his zoan form, R actually became more cuddly. But then again that might've been a territory thing. 

And now, the evasive chef was touching him. The hand felt light like the wing beat of a moth, honestly if it wasn't for the fact that Law saw the hand on his shoulder, how it slowly curled into a fist gathering fabric inside of it, he wouldn't have even noticed it. The next thing he knew was that he felt the man's head take a rest against his back, his forehead touching it. The captain blinked in confusion. And then his mind registered it. His muscles stiffened unnoticeably. "... My balance is messed up, can you.. Lead me to a silent room I can stay in for a while", he heard the man mumble weakly. Then it dawned on him.

R was asking him to help, and he was embarrassed by it, this kind or behaviour was him being shy and flustered by a simple request, a need that he had. On his right, Law heard both Shachi and Penguin whisper how cute the scene was, though the younger man was most definitely suffering. He turned his head slightly and spoke in a softer tone. "Is it okay if I carry you?"

The red head stared at him, frozen in place, carefully weighing the pros and cons of the offer. He then shook his head in response. "I'd rather not, the less I'm touched, the better", Law agreed to his reasoning and offered to walk behind the man and help him whenever he seemed to lose his balance. R agreed to this. 

As the captain and the cook left the room, the younger man noticeably shaking and wobbling ever so slightly, it was up for Shachi to explain to the newbie what was up with this behaviour.

"Yeah so, Eli hates being touched by people without permission", he said to the confused male wearing a mask, "and if he's having an especially rough day, he wears that shirt to let us know that you should really not touch him". The masked male, who clocked his head to the right in confusion, though not a word came out from him. "The cook has very sharp senses and they sometimes give him trouble, calls it sensory overload, and that's when everything feels terrible for him, it's not contagious, captain checked". 

It took two days for R to be himself again, two full days of him resting in a pitch black room, curled into a ball. During that time, he barely ate nor drank anything, only sleeping.

On the third day's eve, the crew came to hear that faint singing once more, majority of them gotten used to this phenomenon, still unsure of what it meant. The oldest members of the group didn't even notice it anymore, but it did still affect them, making them relax and feel more at ease. The new members on the other hand would spend a long time conversing about it and trying to figure out where the singing came from, without any luck in finding it out. Not a single person on the ship could help with that, some of them, like Jean Bart, telling them that it was better to let it be.

Law wrote onto his logbook that evening, the door opening like it usually did during nights like that, the cook stepping in as per usual. What was unusual for the occasion however, was the fact that he was in his human form instead of the panther one. His face was serious and eyes locked on Law's face.

"It's not nice to stare Eli-ya", "Maybe so"

The captain looked up, his eyes directly meeting with the yellow gaze of the redhead. Just when had he come so close? The duo stared at one another for a couple of minutes in silence, neither one budging. There was slight tension, which was more than normal. R was known to challenge Law whenever he had the chance to, questioning him and his decisions. But this time, there was something else in the mix. The usual mischievous spark was missing from his eyes, replaced by a stern gaze. 

"You plan to go alone to Dressrosa to take down Doflamingo."

Law blinked, he hadn't really talked about his goal with anyone in the crew, the only ones who did know of it were Bepo, Shachi, Penguin and Ikkaku. "Your current course will cause you grief and pain, lots of pain. You need to let go of the past sooner or later so you can move on, lay them all to rest, including him", R's face was a mask of seriousness and concern, "You need to let go of Corazon, it wasn't your fault. Lay him to rest along with your anger or it'll destroy you". The raven opened his mouth to speak, but the cook had already straightened himself to his full height and was now walking towards the door. And for a brief moment, Law could've sworn that he saw the back of his adoptive father figure.

Staring at the door as it closed, the captain leaned back on his chair, silently pulling open a drawer from which he took yet another notebook, swiftly opening it. His confused mind working faster than usual, the man wrote on the empty page what had just happened. He had no concrete proof of it, but he was fairly sure that R was secretly a reincarnation of Corazon. Though it also appeared to be impossible. R was in his twenties. Corazon died eleven years ago.

Sure, he could also claim that it was just the redhead seeing into the future, but how he'd talked seemed more like how a friend would talk to you upon realising that you were actively self sabotaging. As he stared at the text he'd just written, Law couldn't help but to wonder once again just where R had come from all those years ago. Ivankov's notes only stated that he'd simply appeared into their hideout and that he'd been acting very adult like and mature as opposed to the other kids. Such maturity didn't usually come from nowhere.

The island where he'd possibly come from was noted to be one that had sunk, no doubt killing everyone on it, and there were some records of a ship that had also sunk in a storm with all of its passengers dying. But the man didn't seem to carry trauma in similar way as Law himself did as someone who'd witnessed and survive a genocide and the amber lead. He himself had trauma that he'd never been able to move past, hadn't expected anyone to know of, and now R had made a pointed reference as if he'd been there himself. As if the redhead had also hidden himself among the lifeless corpses of the islanders, seen him, known him, recognised him.

A few weeks passed and Law completely forgot about the instance.

And then the Rocky Port Incident happened.

As the Heart Pirates retreated, Law being somewhat carried by the Cook, who now donned a cap to shadow his eyes from the light, the serious look that was on the man's face and how desperate he was to take the captain to safety made him remember once more how the redhead acted normally and how he detested both touching and being touched. And yet during these times of threat, he was willing to toss that aside for the sake of the crew.

The rest of the crew never mentioned it, but they appreciated it. The man sitting close to them, close enough to touch, clearly guarding them late into the night. Falling asleep and allowing himself to rest his head on their shoulders just like how he didn't move away if they did the same to him. While making their escape, Law noticed the pink haired marine he'd seen at the Marine Ford too standing in between Luffy and Akainu in the process. Coby was his name wasn't it. Straw Hat's friend. From the way he was protecting the citizens, kicking away rocks, destroying some in the process, the captain could tell that he was a good man, different from the top of the marines. The crew took a moment to rest in a hidden port, deep below the sea level to avoid detection.

R zoomed directly into the kitchen where they soon heard the sound of kitchenwares, no doubt to create something warm for them to enjoy. These moments were something that they cherished when it came to the redhead, the silent support, the way he made sure that they all would have a warm meal to get their strength back, and afterwards, he'd sit on the sofa, allowing anyone who needed to approach him. And he'd guard them as they rested, running his fingers through their hair, whispering encouraging words without even realising it. 

In a way, R was like an older brother to them all, who seemed aloof and distant, emotionally unavailable, yet he always had the words they needed to hear. It also made it more difficult for them to find a way to cheer him up if he so needed, the man just never showed the need, deciding to curl into a hidden nook within the ship for a while. It worried many of them, R took on a lot more responsibility than he should've, treating them with kindness and patience that he didn't seem to give to himself.

After the usual round of R radiating his usual homey personality that he refused to show outside the Polar Tang, Law made sure to seek him out himself. He knew that the cook was stressed and tired, which made him a lot more likely to snap at others, but he still kept it all in. Unsurprisingly, the raven found the man near the machine room, where nobody would go that often. It was a dark and somewhat silent place without anyone else in sight, perfect for silent thinking.

Law saw the way the redhead stared into the emptiness, his eyes not really focused, unaware of his surroundings, and without thinking, he roomed them both into his office. This effectively snapped the man out of his thoughts, making him look at Law with a slightly irritated look, pink lips firmly pursed together in annoyance. But the captain gave no two shits about it, simply pulling him into an embrace in the room with a locked door, and waited. The first reaction was as it usually was, R trying to pull away, his muscles all tensed up, he always did this. Before long, the man simply gave up and relaxed, sighing as he so did.

The captain knew that the man could sense that he wasn't the one who needed this, and even more so that this reaction, even after a year of bonding, was because of the redhead being unfamiliar with this.

R was a proud man, always handling things on his own, taking care of things on his own, moving on his own, solving problems on his own. He never asked for advice, never asked for a permission, always taking care of everyone else but himself. In his own mind, he probably saw himself as unworthy.

A low hum made its way out of Law's throat into the ears of the man he was holding. It was a simple tune he barely remembered from his own childhood, from a song he vaguely remembered his mother singing to his sister when she was scared of the thunder. In his arms, he felt the man relax further and how he took a shaking breath.

Law knew that there'd come a time when he'd need to ask for R to hold him the same way he held the crew, that one day he'd need to be given the permission to cry and be vulnerable, but for now… R was the one who needed it most.

He felt the man bury his face onto his right shoulder, felt the hot tears that fell onto his hoodie, soaking it. He felt the chest of the cook rise and lower against his as he took in one shaky breath after another, his body shaking from both adrenaline and cold he felt as a result of his body heat rising from his crying, and slowly the breathing became even. It took a moment for Law to realise that the man had fallen asleep against him, several to notice the way R had clung onto him as if he was the last thing keeping him in this world. Sighing, he roomed them onto his bed, without bothering to attempt to untangle the redhead from him. Instead, he simply pulled the cover over them both and decided to sleep, too. He might as well allow this.

In his mind he came to the conclusion that it wasn't that R didn't really like being touched, but rather that he was embarrassed by how needy he could be about it and how his composure would crumble like a pillar made of sand. It hadn't taken any words from Law to make the man let go of his carefully crafted mask of calmness, only a firm yet gentle embrace and some humming.

Yes… rather than hating being touched, it was simply… Not wanting to make others be aware of his pain and see him be vulnerable. R was flustered easily after all.


	16. Gift

Smoker stared down at his desk, where laid three wanted posters. The newly appointed vice-admiral would've been lying if he'd said that he was surprised to see them, saying that he was very much disappointed in the marine soldiers was closer to how he was really feeling.

The posters had magnificent photos, each of them showing a red man smirking. The first poster belonged to Revolutionary Ren, the former chief of staff before he'd disappeared, in the shot he was smirking, his face looking towards something in a ⅓ angle, and you could see a beaten marine in the reflection of his sunglasses, the man was wearing a frilly scarf, high collar shirt and a vest.

The second poster was simply named "Nao" and it featured a red haired man's profile, facial expression of total concentration telling Smoker that it had been taken during a fight. This man was wearing a lot more relaxed outfit. And the third and final poster belonged to a man known as "Eli", and it featured a photo of a man staring directly at the camera with a genuine, gentle smile. You couldn't see his face as it was obscured by the shadow that the cap of his hat cast on him, the man was wearing the uniform of the Heart Pirates.

The problem wasn't the amount of posters nor the different styles of photos, the marine did pay photographers of different backgrounds for these after all. The problem was however the fact that these were all of the same person.

Smoker had known that the navy could be stupid and make terrible mistakes, but this level was even greater than usual.

And then there was the whole newspaper from the other day that kept making the matters worse. It now claimed that there was a set of triplets that were fathered by none other than one of the four emperors himself, Red Haired Shanks. And while the redhead from the photos did have similar attributes to the famed pirate, he didn't seem to acknowledge the older man as his father.

Smoker stared at the first poster.

Captain Smoker was not in the mood for any kinds of distractions today. He'd just been told that he was being sent to Loguetown to uphold the peace, which actively meant that he was seen as a weakling or sort. Why did he assume this to be the case? Loguetown was located on East Blue, the weakest sea there was. And this had happened shortly after he'd refused to kill a pirate, choosing to imprison him instead. He'd seen the desperation in the man's eyes, known that he'd been driven to this path because he had no other choice. Would he receive the punishment, and be given a second chance in life, he could turn around and become a good man.

However, his superiors had disagreed on this notion, ultimately deciding that mercy wasn't something a pirate should have the luxury of knowing.

Walking down the halls of the navy headquarters, angry at the way things were in the marines, Smoker arrived to his soon ex-office. Frustrated, he kicked the door open and flicked the lights on. He'd have to pack that evening.

As the lights lit up the room, the captain's eyes widened in disbelief and confusion. 

A young man, not much older than eighteen at most, was sitting in his chair, at his desk, and eating a sandwich. From the way he dressed, he could've easily been mistaken to be one of the world nobles, but Smoker had never met any noble with such a bright red hair and yellow eyes. From the looks of it, the late teen hadn't expected to see him either as he was frozen to his seat, staring at the captain with mixed feelings. "Ah", the young man started, "This… This isn't good".

Smoker had only recently seen the wanted poster with the face of this man, but it still messed with him to see the younger one in person. He was so young, so small, so thin and fragile looking. And yet… This was the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army.

Smoker contemplated on attacking the man, but decided against it. It wasn't his problem if these jerks couldn't even keep the place free of infiltrations.

The white haired man closed that door and fished a cigarette from his special cigarette holster. Without saying a word, he moved over to the table and started to sort the items into groups. The redhead looked at his doings curiously. "You're unhappy", a small voice said, but Smoker didn't answer. He was still angry about the whole deal.

As he kept his eyes on the table, he failed to notice that the man was moving. Before long, he felt a hand pet his head, which made him freeze. It was such an odd sensation for him. Not really bad, more neutral really, but he was an adult and this wasn't something one would call normal.

His brown eyes looked up finally to the criminal. Trying to understand what was happening. The man was clearly armed, but he didn't bother to even attempt to attack him for some reason. Instead, he stood up and walked around the table, not caring about the potential death that awaited him on the other side. Surprisingly enough, the man soon dragged him towards the couch that was in the room for Smoker's short snoozing moments and had him sit down.

The marine captain wasn't sure exactly why he went along with it, nor why he allowed the man to guide him to lay down to use his own lap as a pillow. He was even less sure about why the man humming lightly while stroking his hair made him relax so much.

And then the man started to sing.

His voice was… Different. It was enchanting and beautiful in a home like way, what you'd expect from a mother. It was soft, each consonant sound that was made fell from the man's lips in a perfect pitch, softness and tempo. It was comforting to listen to and Smoker couldn't help but to wonder why this man had joined the revolutionaries. Singing soon turned into calming chatter where the man told him that it'd be okay, asked him about the reason that made him so upset, and Smoker was compelled to tell him everything. It felt like he'd known this man always, like he could trust him.

"... Mercy isn't a weakness, it's definitely a luxury that should be handed to people who are given no choice more often", the man said after listening to Smoker express his displease, "And who knows, maybe you'll meet a worthy opponent, someone to pursue, in Loguetown. The seas are vast and unknown, even the weakest one can manufacture a surprising power". The man pat his cheek affectionately before shifting in a way that made Smoker aware of him wanting to get up.

He watched how the man stretched and opened the window, the wind outside picking up… and then he exited through that very same window. It was at that point that Smoker remembered that the redhead was a criminal. 

After that incident, the man had checked on him several times under the oddest of circumstances, always being cheery and happy to see him, telling him about how his life had been and what he'd been doing before asking Smoker what he'd been up to. After a while the marine had made a call to the headquarters and the only person he knew to have a family and talked about this behaviour. Garp had only laughed at his confusion and claimed that the younger man probably saw him as an older sibling or an uncle which was the reason why he was acting so familiarly to him.

He'd left out the detail of who the person in question was though, he didn't need to get crap about the man being a revolutionary.

Then to his astonishment, the redhead had started to send him things from his travels. Limited edition snacks, socks, mittens, notebooks, pencils, letters, photos of the places he'd visited, always signing the thing with a simple "R". After a while, he'd received a simple letter that explained that the man was starting to lose his memories and was on a journey to find a doctor who could help and a couple of years passed without him seeing the redhead at all. The boxes still kept coming.

When Smoker had seen the man on the battlefield, he'd been surprised. Ren didn't seem the type to take unnecessary risks and yet there he had been, running towards the most dangerous area.

He hadn't heard a thing of the man for a while, which arguably did make the captain worry a little.

And then the new bounties had arrived.

Ren was still at 600 million beris, as per usual, but his new bounties under the names of Nao and Eli had 320 million beris and 510 million beris after him joining the Heart Pirates. "Nao" apparently had a lower bounty because he had been referred to as the cook of the ship once and the crew that had been present during the Sabaody Auction Attack had acted as if they'd never seen him fight before, so the marines had just assumed that he wasn't that much of a threat.

With the bounty posters, he'd also received a package. Without even opening it, Smoker had known that it was from the redhead. Carefully, he cut open the tape that kept the box closed. The vice-admiral pulled out a series of tightly secured items, each wrapped onto soft cloths. Among these items was a letter, which he laid on the table for later reading. Slowly unwrapping the items, he came to face some exquisite looking pottery, a porcelain doll that unmistakably looked like him (it had ball joints and could be posed) and a lot of doll clothing. His eyes wandered up to the shelf were another doll, this one looking like Tashigi, carefully placed and posed behind the glass.

He found it oddly endearing to have these miniatures be sent to him, the amount of detail that had gone to them showed great attention to detail. But at the same time, Smoker wasn't sure of what to make of this. Slowly, the silverette got up, holding onto the doll, sliding the door open, he placed the doll right next to the Tashigi doll, noting how the doll of him was noticeably taller than the other one was. With precision and care, he posed the doll and closed the door once more before storing the doll clothes into the drawer. He'd had to dedicate a full drawer for these as the red head had sent a lot of them on the long run along with changeable faces with different facial expressions. He'd never bothered to change the expressions on the dolls and as such they both supported a gentle smile.

As he sat down, his protégé herself decided to enter and she was quick to point out the doll. "From that man?" was all she said as Smoker started to read the letter. The first thing he'd noticed during these years was the neat cursive the man wrote with, it was easy to read and beautiful to look at. Each time he saw it, he was reminded of the high class people. The way the man wrote was also very peculiar, it sounded very formal and official, a lot of the words that were used were harder to understand without a dictionary. He was sure that if he had someone who knew more about how handwriting reflected our personalities, they would've been able to tell a lot about this person.

What was curious about these letters however, was how they seemed to be able to radiate warmth and kindness. Reading them did make you feel important and like you mattered, which was an odd sensation coming from a piece of paper. Not to mention that the writer was a high ranking criminal.

As the man flipped the thing fully open, a piece of paper, a photo fell from it. Smoker took a look at it, his brows furrowing in thought. It was the Heart Pirates, the captain at the centre and a large white bear standing behind him. Next to the man stood his third and fourth closest men, Penguin and Shachi and next to those two were the mechanic known as Ikkaku and the redhead himself. Majority of them were smiling at the camera, though the captain and the mentioned former revolutionary had slightly different expressions. 

Trafalgar Law's eyes looked serious and somewhat tired, and while he was smiling, it didn't quite reach his eyes. R on the other hand, smiling too, had his eyes following his captain, worry and something else shining through. Smoker flipped the photo, noting how someone had painted the actual colours onto it later and sealed it with a see through coating. His eyes caught the text on the other side and his own facial expression softened slightly.

"Congratulations for your promotion Smokey! - R" 

"What an odd criminal", he mumbled to himself, Tashigi silently agreeing with her mentor.

"You sent the photo for Smokey?" C's surprised voice carried over to the ears of one red haired chef, who was sharpening his knives. "He did get promoted, so it was the polite thing to do", his answer prompted a laugh from the other denden. During the time the Hearts had been taking care of the Straw Hat, one of the Kuja Pirates had approached him. It had turned out that the person was someone R had known from the other world, K. The nonbinary pirate had revealed that they'd also somehow ended up into this one and Empress had taken them in. So naturally, R had given them his Denden number and later on gotten himself another Denden just so he could have a group call with the two friends from time to time.

"You sure that you're not just crushing on him, catman~?" R raised a brow at this teasing, but didn't really bother saying anything about it. They all knew that this wasn't the case. "Like how you're crushing on Robin, piney?" C's answer made R chuckle a little.

Shachi and Penguin watched this unveil before their eyes, listening to the trio tease one another and talk so casually made them relax a little. The two had been trying to figure out why R did send these things to the marine, and they'd even asked the man himself, but all they'd received was a teasing smile and a "Wouldn't you want to know, seamen". This had led to them asking what a seamen was only to realise what it sounded like and giving up immediately.

"He's not a bad person per say", R suddenly said, "he's just doing his duty and what he sees to be right. I want him to know that I appreciate his efforts". Suddenly the man's voice turned mischievous once more as a smirk made its way onto his pale face. "Not to mention how annoyed and confused he most definitely is over the things I've sent him". The three letter named people then proceeded to laugh. R raised a glass to his lips. "So when are you going to tell Law that you have a serious crush on him?" Penguin and Shachi shot a glance towards one another as the chef spat out his drink. 

"whAt"

"You act very differently when you're near him and you do talk about him in this tone-" 

"That's just normal, he's my captain, everyone here does that!" 

"Not you Nao, not you, you don't usually want to allow people to touch you nor do you stay as near to them as you did when you were visiting the Island of Women to drop off Luffy", the kuja pirate said with a stern voice, effectively silencing the man. A moment of silence enveloped them. "Oh! You did tend to lean close to him at Sabaody too! I forgot about it because it was crazy and my crew was desperately trying to survive", C's voice carried over to them, both of the men thinking back to the way the man behaved. When R resumed talking, his voice was a lot quieter than normal and it wavered. "Do I do that..? I didn't… I don't…", it was more like he was whispering these questions from himself instead of asking about it, but his two friends assured him that he did indeed do that.

Naturally, this made some gears turn in the head of the ship assigned chaotic dumbass duo, who were quick to go to the captain.

"Captain, what do you think about Eli?" Law looked up from his book, where he'd been marking more of his findings regarding neurology and the structure of the human brain. He blinked a couple of times, trying to decipher what he was being asked. "He is a valuable member of the crew, irreplaceable, good fighter, calm and gentle, kind", the raven counted a few things from the top of his head, unsure of what the two really wanted to know. From the way Penguin's nose scronched, it was clear that this wasn't the answer they were looking for. "No no, we meant like… Do you like.. _Like_ like him?", "? Of course I do? If I didn't, he would've been sent away pretty early on with an apology for Emporio-ya"

Shachi and Penguin shared a look, it wasn't exactly what they meant, but it was close enough. Especially since this topic was something that none of them were too familiar with, at heart all three of them were still nothing but children, relying on one another. They'd become a family when their own had either died or forsaken them. Family, such was their bond from the get go. They found each other, they chose each other, and they stayed together.

R was the odd one out really, he didn't act like he was part of the family, didn't show all of his sides to them. So far they'd only seen the caretaker, protector and the angry R, but they all knew that Law had seen more. A lot more. 

Shachi had seen a post breakdown R, the man had one morning come out of his cabin, his eyes swollen and red, face flushed. That morning, only Shachi, who'd been at night watch, was up and so he got to see this rare sight. There had been something unexplainably fragile yet beautiful about him in this state, how he was a lot more sensitive, in a soft way, yet strong and far from vulnerable. The two redheads hadn't said anything, Shachi wasn't sure if the other had even noticed him, but he'd definitely noticed the cook.

The cook was wearing pastels that day, soft and warm fabrics, he'd also protected his hands. The entire day, he'd been calm and strong in a quiet way, explaining his appearance with "I felt a bit cold today", giving out his usual amount of gentle kindness to the crew. It broke their hearts a little to know that he wasn't exactly okay and that he wasn't comfortable with letting them know if he was hurting. Captain had reassured them that from that day on, he'd make sure to be there for the man.

And about a month later, they'd found the two asleep in the captain's bed. Law had wrapped his arms protectively around the smaller man. Smaller man, whose face was flushed from obvious tears he'd been shedding. Neither of them had bothered to change for the night, so they'd just assumed that R had fallen asleep right after the breakdown, Law managing to calm him down. The fact that R's hand was tightly gripping the raven's shirt while asleep supported this theory.

It was clear to the crew that there was a deeper bond between the two men, a deeper level of trust, but none of them knew what it exactly was. And neither of them ever addressed the night they'd spent together. However, they'd seen R knock onto the captain's door from time to time, his facial expression telling them that he wasn't feeling too good and wanted to talk about it.

Penguin and Shachi retreated from the captain's office, where Law was left behind looking confused and possibly concerned. Upon noting how the small room reserved for the Dendens was empty a rather mischievous thought made its way into their minds. 


End file.
